


Alternate Start

by kelkblr



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, M/M, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), Sexual Assault, Threats of Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2018-05-27 16:26:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 33,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6291676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kelkblr/pseuds/kelkblr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On an undercover mission on a remote Scottish island, Harry Hart encounters the last person he expected to see - Eggsy Unwin. With both their lives in danger and Harry out of contact with Kingsman, they have to somehow stay alive and get off the island, before it's too late</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set before the events of the movie but I don't think it changes canon *too* much.
> 
> Canon-typical violence and the bad guys really are bad guys - this isn't a nice fluffy story. I will warn before each chapter for anything specific.

On a clear day it would have been possible to glimpse the Mull of Kintyre from the boat, or even to see the dividing line between sea and sky, but the weather had turned shortly before Harry Hart’s flight from London landed at Glasgow and, by the time he’d been ferried to his rendezvous with the monosyllabic three-man boat crew tasked with transporting him to his destination, dense fog had set in over the Firth of Clyde and the visibility had dropped to less than a hundred metres in each direction. For all intents and purposes, the little craft was alone on the water.

“Another mile or so now, Harry,” Merlin murmured in Harry’s ear.

Harry looked around the boat again, letting Merlin get a good look at its other occupants. The two junior crewmen were down below, but the captain, Carrick, was in the wheelhouse. Harry didn’t spare him too much time; he had more important things to concentrate on, starting with the woman sitting on the narrow bench seat at the side of the wheelhouse. She was about the same age as he was, her greying blonde hair almost hidden under a thick woollen beret that matched her dark blue coat. She was very pale, and Harry suspected she was seasick.

“Margaret Connor,” Merlin told him. “Under-Secretary of State for Defence.”

Harry moved on to the older man sat near the stern. His lean, ascetic face was bronzed by the sun and, as Harry watched, he took off his narrow-rimmed round glasses and began to polish them. He didn’t look particularly comfortable on the water either.

“General Sir Anthony Hardwick,” Merlin intoned. “Chief of the General Staff.”

The final passenger had already introduced himself to Harry on the jetty before casting off: Peter Woolford, an investment banker based in Geneva. He stood proudly in the bow, staring ahead like some long-dead imagined Viking ancestor, seemingly oblivious to the bitter northerly wind and the sea spray drenching him every time the boat pitched forward.

And Kingsman had absolutely nothing on any of them. There wasn't even a parking ticket between the three of them, nor on the other guests attending this long weekend on a remote, windswept island nestling between Scotland and Northern Ireland. Six guests - and Harry - invited to Fetheray at the behest of Dominic Ackerman; businessman, preferred contractor to the MoD, benefactor of myriad charitable organisations, and friend - or at least, acquaintance - of the well-connected and influential.

Invitations to Fetheray weren't easy to come by and it had taken nearly a year for Harry to receive his own in the guise of Sir Henry Latimer, Bt. Ackerman was, for all his hard-headed business acumen, something of a snob and a title, even a lowly one, had greased the wheels somewhat, particularly when coupled with Sir Henry's concocted backstory. It was a shame, Harry thought, that he probably wouldn't be able to use Latimer again; it had served him well over the years.

"You should be seeing the island coming into view now," Merlin said in his ear.

 _Fat chance_ , Harry thought. The sea fog was so dense they wouldn't see the island until they were almost upon it.

The thought that all of this, all the planning and preparation and resource that had been put into this operation, might very well be for naught was one that had crossed Harry's mind more than once. It was, after all, based off little more than the claims of a single informant dying of injuries sustained in suspicious circumstances, claims that had already been dismissed by Scotland Yard, Special Branch, and MI5 as too fanciful for words. Dominic Ackerman was, as far as those agencies were concerned, a man of spotless reputation and close enough to the Establishment for any line of enquiry to be quickly and very firmly shut down. It was only Harry’s persistence that had carried Kingsman’s own inquiries this far and Harry knew full well that if he failed to turn up any evidence of wrongdoing over this weekend, Arthur would pull the plug on the whole operation.

"Lancelot is in position," Merlin informed him.

Lancelot was probably cursing Harry's name, Harry thought. The other agent was Harry's backup - Harry's _only_ backup - and his weekend was to be spent in a utilitarian cottage on Arran. What he could usefully do from there if things really went tits up, Harry was unsure, but it made Merlin feel better to know that Harry had some backup in the general vicinity.

Woolford walked back from the bow, giving Harry a quick smile as he passed. "First time here?"

"Yes. You?" Harry had to raise his voice a little to be heard over the sound of the engine.

"Sadly so." Woolford stuck out a hand for Harry to shake. "Peter Woolford."

"Henry Latimer."

Woolford's brow furrowed; he was clearly trying to place Latimer and couldn't. "You know Mr Ackerman well?"

"We've met socially," Harry said neutrally. Nearly seven months now since they'd been introduced at a charity fundraiser by a minor member of the Royal family. That had led to an invitation to a further event, and then a dinner party, and then a slightly more exclusive dinner party, and then-

-and then this.

 _I've made enquiries about you, Sir Henry_ , Ackerman had said, a faint smile on his lips. _I think you would find it entertaining to join me_.

Harry was brought out of his thoughts by the sound of the engine being throttled back and a general air of anticipation as the boat angled into a slow and gentle turn. Harry tilted his head: he could hear waves breaking somewhere ahead. They had, it seemed, at last reached their destination. The sound of breaking waves got louder, and like the lifting of a curtain the fog parted to reveal the first glimpse of Fetheray.

At first sight, it was not inspiring. Harry had spent hours poring over maps, photographs, and satellite images of the island until he had every detail of it fixed in his head, so he immediately recognised the pebbled beach they were running parallel to as the island's only beach, adjacent to the jetty at the eastern shore. There were a few buildings clustered around the jetty, and a single-track road that ran around the southern shore to, eventually, Ackerman's house, built on a cliff-top at the western end of the island. From end to end, the island was just over a mile long, and a little under half a mile wide. It seemed improbable that any untoward activities could be carried out on such a small island but, if their informant had been telling even half the truth, then appearances were very much deceptive.

The jetty was in sight now, and Harry saw that there were four people waiting for them, and a car parked behind. A welcoming committee. He wondered if it was a friendly one.

"Careful now," Carrick grunted as he manoeuvred the boat in towards the jetty. Those who were standing took the hint and sat down, bracing themselves against the sides of the boat as it nudged into its mooring. Almost at once, Carrick cut the engine and the younger crewman bounded up from below to secure the lines.

None of the bystanders on the jetty moved to help. Now they were closer, Harry could see that two of them were women. The other two, both tall, bulky men, had _security_ written all over them.

Harry rose to his feet, turned to Margaret Connor, and courteously extended his arm. She gave him a thin smile and accepted his assistance in climbing over the transom and onto the jetty. The general and Peter Woolford followed. Only when they were all standing on solid ground did one of the women, a short, smiling brunette, come forward to greet them.

"Welcome to Fetheray. Mrs Connor, Sir Anthony, Sir Henry, Mr Woolford; if you'd like to follow me, my name is Melanie Curtis and I'm Mr Ackerman's assistant." She gestured to the other woman, a tall, unsmiling blonde. “This is Emilia Kmiec, she's our deputy head of security and she'll be making sure that your bags are conveyed up to the house safely."

 _Searching the bags thoroughly_ , Harry mentally translated. He didn't think Emilia Kmiec was much of a bag carrier. The way she carried herself screamed ex-military and he didn't miss the way she carefully looked them all over, assessing them with expert ease. He'd have to be careful around her.

"I can't wait to get somewhere warm," Margaret Connor said fervently. "Why is it so cold up here?"

"Scotland often is," Harry offered, smiling politely.

"Should get out of London more often, Margaret," Sir Anthony said gruffly. They already knew each other, of course; not friends as such but they had crossed paths at Westminster and had a good number of mutual acquaintances, including Dominic Ackerman. Merlin's best efforts hadn't been able to dig up anything more substantial on a connection between them.

"if you'd like to follow me," Melanie said, still smiling, as she gestured to the waiting car.

Harry had to resist the urge to look back as they pulled away from the jetty. Undoubtedly their bags were already being examined; fortunately, there was absolutely nothing untoward for them to discover in Harry's suitcase. Harry had been quite insistent about that: the last thing he needed was to fall down at the very first hurdle. Instead he settled himself back in the comfortable seat and listened to Melanie playing tour guide as she described the layout of the island, its history, and its flora and fauna. Harry had to give her credit for making something out of very little, for, unlike many Scottish islands, Fetheray had little in the way of history or life of any kind.

From what little Harry could see through the fog to either side of the road, however, it was evident Ackerman had been making at least some changes to the island, because Harry could see trees and vegetation that almost certainly weren't native, along with some clearly artificial rock formations. He already knew that there were few details available of the work Ackerman had commissioned on Fetheray in the three years since he'd bought the island from its previous owners: designers and contractors were engaged on terms of strict confidentiality and the work was parcelled out in such a way that each only seemed to know a little of the whole. Even the substantial excavations to the east of the house had been completed without any one contractor being aware of their purpose. It was all rather infuriating.

“Ackerman already here then, is he?" Sir Anthony enquired.

"Mr Ackerman arrived yesterday evening," Melanie told him. "He's very much looking forward to this weekend and hopes you will all enjoy yourselves."

Margaret Connor sniffed. “I hope the weather improves a little. I can't see a thing in this fog."

"That won't be a problem," Melanie assured her. "The systems we have in place can compensate for poor visibility."

"Bloody hope so," Woolford said shortly.

“Don’t you worry about it,” the General said, although he was mostly addressing the MP. “Ackerman thinks of every eventuality.”

Years of practice allowed Harry to easily maintain a neutral expression throughout this exchange but he was puzzled; the others seemed to have a good idea of whatever it was Ackerman had planned, whereas Harry’s conversations with the man about this weekend had been vague in the extreme. A few questions about Sir Henry’s military service and a series of game hunting holidays were the only notable topics Harry could recollect, but he couldn’t imagine that either was particularly relevant for a weekend on Fetheray. Setting that aside for the moment, Harry concentrated on what Merlin had to tell him about Ackerman’s employees.

“Interesting company you keep, Galahad. Melanie Curtis has been Ackerman’s PA for three years. Nothing of any _official_ note on her, but in a previous existence she worked for Cliff Janson, a property developer convicted of fraud and money laundering.” Merlin paused for a moment. “Emilia Kmiec is the interesting one. She works - or worked - for a company called Executive Security Outcomes, a private army of sorts, or a gang of unscrupulous mercenaries if you’re feeling a little less charitable.”

Harry didn’t make a habit of charity, at least not in a professional capacity. He waited for Merlin to continue.

“ESO was founded in 1995 by a Keith McLean - and you’ll want to see his records later, Galahad: let’s just say that if you’re a despotic dictator with inconvenient political opponents to dispose of, McLean is your man - but technically ESO stopped doing business in 2010. Which would be around the time Mr McLean and a number of his employees started working for Dominic Ackerman.” Merlin paused again before he continued. “Watch out for Kmiec, Galahad; she’s a killer. McLean too. Neither of them will hesitate if they see you as a threat to them or their employer. You must maintain your cover no matter what happens.”

Harry turned the information over in his head. It didn’t necessarily mean anything. Plenty of wealthy men and women chose to employ security ‘consultants’ of less than spotless reputation. Perhaps a little tarnish was even preferable, just to give that sense of reassurance that said consultant was not afraid to play dirty when it counted. Money did not buy happiness, certainly not for men like Ackerman; instead it tended to bring paranoia and insecurity and a constant fear that everything could be taken away as quickly as it had been earned.

Although the journey from the landing jetty felt interminable, in reality it was less than ten minutes before the car was slowing to a stop and Harry got his first glimpse of Skirra House, the former lighthouse that had been converted into a family home in the 1950s. Harry had spent hours studying photographs and plans of the house, but he had no idea what internal modifications Ackerman might have made.

The former lighthouse itself stood on top of a towering cliff face looking out over the Irish Sea. To access the house, it was necessary to climb in succession the steps of two circular towers, built in the Art Deco style, that climbed the cliff face. The towers were connected to each other and to the lighthouse by enclosed walkways. There was no other way to access the house itself and the small, windswept garden attached to it.

Melanie ushered them out of the car and over to the door of the first tower. Harry noted that a new building had been constructed at the base of the cliff; a long, low building that had been whitewashed against the winter gales. There were no windows visible, which struck Harry as distinctly odd, and no signs of habitation. Melanie noticed his interest and said:

"That's for the housekeeper."

Harry felt the first rush of adrenaline. It wasn't much, and it didn't necessarily mean anything, but he was sure that Melanie Curtis had just lied to him.

"Doesn't look much like a housekeeper's cottage to me," Merlin murmured. "Unless the housekeeper likes living in the dark."

There was no time to think about it at the moment, but Harry filed it away for future consideration. He followed Margaret Connor into the tower and saw at once that the spiral staircase that had been part of the original 1930s fittings had been torn out and replaced with a modern hydraulic lift. As the lift rose smoothly through the four floors of the tower, Harry had time to note that the building had apparently been extensively renovated. He also noted the new security system and the multiple cameras fitted on each floor.

They disembarked from the lift at the top of the tower and crossed the walkway to the second tower, which had been similarly retrofitted with a lift. Woolford made a crass comment about his ears popping as Harry ignored him in favour of watching Melanie and the code she typed into the numerical pad set into the wall at the top of the tower.

"If you'd like to follow me," she said cheerily as the exterior door clicked open. "I'll take you through to the house, where we'll get you settled in your rooms."

Harry's initial impression of the interior of Skirra House was that it had been decorated to look like a hotel. An expensive hotel, admittedly, but a hotel nonetheless, devoid of any real personal touches or personality. Harry knew from his research prior to arriving on the island that the family who had carried out the first conversion had not cared to preserve any of the lighthouse’s original Art Deco features, choosing instead to decorate in a decidedly 1950s style. Many of the large, airy rooms had been sub-divided at that time to form smaller rooms and it was relatively easy to spot - if you were looking for it and knew what you were looking for - where Ackerman’s renovations had restored the proportions of the original. Skirra House had been extensively renovated under Ackerman’s ownership, undoubtedly at vast expense.

It wasn't until Harry was being shown his suite -  a large, airy sitting room with a view of the sea, a bedroom with a large, comfortable bed, an ensuite bathroom with a huge, oversized bath that Harry couldn’t wait to soak in, and a good number of high-end and expertly-placed bugs - that he put his finger on what, exactly, bothered him about the house.

It felt very much like a stage set. The staff were polite and entirely proper and everything was in its place, but there was nothing _real_ about it, and the realisation filled Harry with a sense of complete and utter glee.

He had been _right_. Every instinct, every ounce of experience and intuition that told him _something_ was wrong about Dominic Ackerman and his Scottish hideaway had been correct. All those months of work had been worth it for this, this perfect moment when the world slid into focus and Harry’s heart sang with the thrill of the chase.

There was something going on, out here on Fetheray, and Harry was going to find out what it was.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry finds out what's really going on, and gets his first sight of Eggsy

Dinner was an uninspiring affair. The food was delicious and accompanied by an excellent wine selection, the service speedy and efficient, and the conversation entertaining in a bland sort of way, but there was nothing for Harry to really get his teeth into. It did, however, allow him the opportunity to study his fellow guests, particularly those he had not encountered in the journey to the island, and get to know a little more about them with the benefit of Merlin murmuring in his ear.

Nicholas Snell was a libel lawyer to the rich and famous, Dame Hannah Auld a High Court judge, and Nagul Khan a special advisor to the Deputy PM. None of them seemed to have any connection to each other, or to the other guests - although Khan was another Westminster type, Harry noted. His background was in communications and PR however, and Merlin had already informed Harry he could find no direct link from Khan to Sir Anthony Hardwick or Margaret Connor. Snell and Auld officially had no link either to each other or to any of the others, but Harry had already noted how warmly Auld and Sir Anthony had greeted each other, like old friends.

And then there was the man at the centre of all this, Dominic Ackerman. So far he had been an impeccable host, and exactly as Harry remembered him: rather like a genial vicar in countenance and with a talent for tactfully moving the conversation along and not allowing one person to dominate proceedings. It was hard to believe the man could be guilty of any wrongdoing but, if Harry was right - and he was increasingly sure he _was_ right - then guilty was exactly what he was. Several times Harry tried to introduce topics that he hoped might lead to some interesting titbit of information about the weekend’s activities, but on each occasion either Ackerman himself or one of the others would inevitably turn the thread of conversation to some unrelated matter.

It was only at the end of dinner that the evening took a more interesting turn.

Ackerman rose to his feet, smiling beatifically at his guests as he gestured towards the door. “Now, ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “If you’d like to follow me, we’ll proceed to the start of this evening’s entertainment.”

There was a murmur of appreciative assent and the others rose in turn. Harry went with them, pretending to be immersed in conversation with Hannah Auld regarding the works of Rubens as they made their way from the dining room into the main entrance hall and from there back across the walkway to the first of the towers. Harry noted the presence of three security guards around the front entrance, and another four stationed in the towers. It seemed rather over the top: in such a remote location there was surely no need for quite so much security.

The lift ride down to ground level was passed mostly in silence, aside from Woolford making one or two crass remarks regarding the close confines of the lift. As they stepped outside the chill hit; the fog had lifted but the northerly wind had strengthened and the temperature had dropped at least five degrees since the afternoon. Ackerman wasted no time in leading them over to the strange building and ushering them inside out of the cold, but Harry took the time to note that there were now four men - men with _security_ written all over them - posted around the building.

There were no doubts now in Harry’s mind that he was on to something.

It was immediately evident that the exterior of the building in no way reflected the interior, because instead of the humble housekeeper's cottage its appearance might, at a stretch, have suggested, the entryway opened onto a short flight of stairs down to a lower level, where chairs and comfortable recliners had been arranged around a series of low tables. There was a waist-height balcony at either side of the lounge area, but whatever could be viewed from these balconies was for the moment hidden from sight by wooden shutters.

Ackerman took the lead, waving them all down the steps and into the lounge area with a beaming smile.

"Please, take your seats, ladies and gentlemen. Make yourselves comfortable. I will return in just a few moments, once I am sure that everything is in place for this evening."

He disappeared back up the stairs, and Harry got a brief glimpse of Emilia Kmiec waiting for him at the door before he vanished from sight. Harry turned his attention back to Hannah Auld, who was relating a long and somewhat uninteresting anecdote about a fraud trial she had presided over. No one else, Harry noted, seemed inclined to comment on Ackerman's departure. Two servants circulated discreetly with wine and this seemed to be enough to maintain a convivial atmosphere.

It was nearly ten minutes before Ackerman returned, bearing an air of smug satisfaction as he beamed beatifically at his guests.

"All ready then, are we?" Sir Anthony said rudely.

"We certainly are," Ackerman said, unruffled. "As you may have noticed, the fog has now lifted and it is a beautiful clear evening, albeit a little on the chilly side. Not that any of us will feel it in here."

There was a soft murmur of laughter.

"Well, everyone else seems to know what's going on," Merlin said quietly in Harry's ear.

Ackerman took a seat on Harry's other side and reach down to the low table in front of them. Sliding out a drawer, he retrieved a number of what appeared to be ordinary remote controls, and laid them out on the table. Keeping one for himself, he pointed it at the far wall and pressed a series of buttons. At once, part of the panelling slid soundlessly upwards to reveal a screen.

Harry frowned. The camera view was showing what looked like the entrance to a commercial garage or perhaps the hangar for a light plane. The doors were currently closed, and there was nothing that could pinpoint the location of the building on the island - if it was on Fetheray at all.

"I think Sir Henry would like to know why he's here," Hannah Auld observed mildly. It was a reminder - and something of a jolt - but while she might look like a particularly prim librarian in a provincial library, she was in fact a very experienced and highly-respected member of the judiciary.

"Ah, yes," Ackerman said, turning to Harry with another of his welcoming smiles. "I'm afraid, Sir Henry, that I have rather kept you in the dark. My little joke, you understand. I hope you won't hold it against me."

Harry smiled. If he'd been made, these could be the last moments of his life. "I'm not sure I quite understand," he said politely.

The others were silent now, watching, listening. Harry didn't think any of them would put up much of a fight; the problem, as far as Harry was concerned, was that Emilia Kmiec was almost certainly still at the top of the stairs and she would prove a far tougher opponent than the present company.

Ackerman leaned back in his seat and smiled benevolently. "When I met you, Sir Henry," he began conversationally. "I knew at once what type of man you were."

"I see," Harry said blandly.

"Of course I had my people look into your antecedents. You had an interesting career, Sir Henry."

"I've been very fortunate in my career." It was surprisingly easy to keep his voice level, play the part.

Ackerman's smile became a little more sardonic. "I should say so, Sir Henry. Very fortunate indeed. To have the ... connections to ensure that a certain unfortunate incident went away." He shook his head in mock-sadness. "Did they ever find the bodies, Sir Henry?"

Harry cheered internally: Ackerman had fallen for the bait. It had been Merlin's idea, Merlin's genius at planting just the right seeds of suspicion into Sir Henry's background. "War is a messy business," he said carelessly. "One can't always play by the rules."

Somewhere behind him, Harry heard Sir Anthony grunt. Whether it was in agreement or not, he wasn't sure.

"Indeed," Ackerman said, still smiling. "And you rather enjoyed it, didn't you, Sir Henry? That feeling of power, the power of life and death over another human being. There's nothing like it, is there?"

"I was a younger man then," Harry said blandly. "My military service ended some time ago."

Nicholas Snell shifted impatiently. "Are we getting to the point of this, Ackerman?" he demanded rudely.

Ackerman, just for a moment, looked annoyed. It was the first chink in the jovial facade that Harry had seen.

"The _point_ , Mr Snell, is that I invited Sir Henry to our little gathering because I knew as soon as I met him that he was a man after my own heart and a worthy participant in this gathering of mine, just as you all are." Smile restored, he added, "You were all invited for your particular ... interests."

Ackerman pressed another button on the remote and the wooden shutters began to retract themselves into the walls, opening up the balconies. Ackerman rose to his feet, gesturing to Harry to follow him as he made his way over to the balcony on the other side of the lounge area. Harry was aware of the others following them, and a little desultory conversation between them, but his attention was focused on Ackerman. Now that the shutters were retracted, he could see that the balcony looked down on a much larger room on the floor below. The room was roofed in glass, to give an unrestricted view of its interior.

"There," Ackerman said softly. "Is our entertainment."

Harry rested his hands on the rail of the balcony and looked down at the twelve young men and women who stood awkwardly in the room below. They were all of a similar age - in their late teens to early twenties Harry judged - and they all looked awkward and uncomfortable.

And scared.

"They can't see us, can they?" Peter Woolford asked. He was on Harry's other side, peering down at those below as if they were fascinating specimens in a laboratory.

Ackerman shook his head. "It's a one-way mirror. They can't see us."

A couple of the girls were crying. One of the boys was pacing backwards and forwards in an agitated manner. Another was methodically working his way around the walls, clearly searching for an exit. Harry watched him, interest piqued. There was something _familiar_ about the boy, something he couldn't quite put his finger on, until the boy suddenly stopped what he was doing and looked up, straight at Harry, and-

-"Oh fuck," Merlin breathed.

It was only by supreme effort of will that the same words didn't leave Harry's mouth. His hands tightened their grip on the rail. There was no mistaking those features. Seventeen years hadn't dulled the memory of Lee Unwin's face and the boy glaring up at him was, beyond all possible doubt, Lee's son. Harry couldn't even remember his name.

"Harry," Merlin said urgently. "Don't do anything stupid. This isn't enough evidence. We need to know what Ackerman’s doing."

"That one looks like he can see us," Nagul Khan remarked.

Ackerman chuckled. "I can assure you that he can't," he said. Turning, he beckoned to one of the hovering servants, who brought him a tablet. Tapping at it, Ackerman nodded thoughtfully. "Gary Unwin, twenty-three years old. Would you like to put your money on him, perhaps?"

"What's his form?" Hannah Auld asked disinterestedly.

"Unemployed. The usual uninteresting minor criminality and wasted potential. Not," Ackerman said with a smile turned suddenly cruel, "someone who will be missed by anyone."

Somehow Harry managed to keep his voice even. "So why is he here? Why are any of them here?" Gary - _Eggsy_ , he remembered, the memory sharp enough to feel like a physical wound - had the same stubborn tilt to his chin Lee had always had, the same lean features. He’d been a small boy on the day Harry had broken the news of Lee’s death; now he was a man. And Harry had no idea what he was doing to be mixed up with Ackerman.

"Ah, yes, I was explaining how this works to you, wasn't I? It's really very simple, Sir Henry. Twelve contestants down there, all what we might call a burden on society. Petty theft, drugs, antisocial behaviour, that sort of thing. The dregs, if you like."

"No use to anyone, the lot of them," Sir Anthony supplied.

"Indeed," Ackerman said, nodding. "And so, you see, we give them a chance. A chance to do something with their lives." He raised a hand to cut off Margaret Connor's tittering laughter. "It's true, my dear. We remove them from their lives of petty crime and daytime television, bring them here, and then all they have to do is survive twelve hours on this island and make their way to the landing jetty, and they're free to go with a reward of more money than they will have ever seen in their lives."

“It’s just survival?” Harry asked, not quite believing what he was hearing.

Snell snorted. “It’s not a camping trip for them.”

“Anything but,” Ackerman said smoothly. “No, Sir Henry, I’m afraid the stakes are rather higher for them that a little exposure to the elements. The odds are against them. But they have a chance, if they can survive for twelve hours.”

"And how _many_ have survived for twelve hours, Dominic?" Hannah Auld said teasingly. "Not one."

"There's always a first time, my dear. Who knows, perhaps this will be that time?"

Ackerman walked Harry over to the other balcony, where they could look out over another, separate room, this one busy with technicians and men Harry had no difficulty recognising as the type of men who were willing to trade violence and death for cold hard cash. A group of technicians were working on a line of six drones, evil-looking things fitted with what looked like stun guns.

“You hunt them down,” Harry said slowly, the full, monstrous horror of Ackerman’s activities washing over him. “You kidnap them and then you let them go and you hunt them down.”

Ackerman nodded. “Kidnap is such an _ugly_ word, Sir Henry,” he chided. “But yes. We give them a start, of course. Forty-five minutes, and then they’re fair game. Once they’re immobilised … well.” Ackerman nudged Harry’s arm with his elbow. “Some will be overcome very quickly; that’s just the way of things. But the strongest, the most adaptable - well, they give us some challenge. Some sport.”

“A Darwinian challenge.”

“Exactly.” Ackerman clapped him on the back. “I knew you’d find it interesting, Sir Henry. The hunt is so much more entertaining with an intelligent quarry, is it not?” Ackerman winked at Harry. “Perhaps the boy you had your eye on - his record speaks for itself. I’m sure you will find him a very _entertaining_ pursuit.”

It was a sharp reminder - a very necessary one - that Ackerman was no fool: he’d noticed Harry’s interest in Lee’s son. Harry couldn’t let his guard down for a moment.

“And are we allowed to finish them off ourselves?” Harry asked off-handedly, ignoring the insinuation. It was what Sir Henry Latimer would have asked. Not Harry Hart.

“Of course. Each of you will have your own caddy available to assist you in, ah, finishing off your quarry.”

Harry rode out the wave of nausea that washed over him. Merlin was silent in his earpiece, and Harry was both irritated and relieved. Irritated because it would have been easier to have someone else make the decision for him, relieved because he didn't need a one-way discussion right now. His mind whirred, considering and discarding every option in turn. If he blew his cover now, he'd never make it off the island, and the evidence he'd collected was still hearsay. He needed something concrete if they were going to take Ackerman down.

“How do you avoid attention from the authorities?” he asked. The question was more to buy himself time than anything else. There _had_ to be a way of stopping this monstrous hunt and rescuing Ackerman’s captives, preferably without getting himself killed in the process. “Or even the odd lost fisherman?”

Ackerman chuckled. “Sir Henry, I’m sure it hasn’t escaped your attention that several of your fellow guests _are_ the authorities. This isn’t the first of these events I’ve hosted here on Fetheray. I can assure you that there will be no _official_ interference in this weekend’s activities. And my security team are _very_ good. You shouldn’t concern yourself with any security matters in any way.”

“You seem to have thought of everything,” Harry said meekly. “That’s very reassuring.”

“It’s fucking terrifying is what it is,” Merlin muttered.

Ackerman was still watching him. “So what do you say, Sir Henry?” he asked lightly, as if Harry’s answer didn’t really matter at all, and the world would go on as it had even if Harry turned him down. “Are you in?”

"I'm sending in Lancelot," Merlin said quietly. "You need backup."

Harry shook his head, disguising it with a cough. With the best will in the world, it would take a few hours for Lancelot to arrive, and when he did he'd have to make his way across the island in the dark with Ackerman's security undoubtedly on the alert. It was a fool’s errand.

"At least let him move in nearer, Galahad," Merlin persisted. "Even offshore, he's closer to you. Just in case."

Harry sighed mentally. It might make Merlin feel better about the situation but he wasn't sure it would do much good. If the worst came to the worst, there was no help that could get to him quickly enough. Harry was on his own.

And he couldn’t imagine a scenario where Ackerman would simply let him walk away.

“Yes,” Harry said. “I’m in.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Standing by is not Harry's forte

The clock ticked over to 10pm.

A klaxon sounded, loud even through multiple layers of glass, and one entire wall of the room began to slide upwards, smoothly retracting into the roof to open the room up to the outside world. Harry wasn’t sure what to call the twelve apprehensive young people now presented with an escape route. _Contestants_ made it seem as if they were trying out for X Factor, _runners_ made him think of young adult fiction. _Victims_ was perhaps the most fitting word, if not the most sensitive. _Captives_ , then.

“What if they don’ run?” Peter Woolford asked. Like Harry, he had a glass of brandy in hand. Unlike Harry, he was onto his third glass, on top of the wine they’d had with dinner, and was well on his way to being completely intoxicated.

“They will,” Ackerman said briefly, not bothering to look round from where he was watching the captives. “It’s made very clear to them what happens if they don’t.”

“How so?” Harry asked, courteously moving aside so that Margaret Connor could get a better look at her favourite, a tall, sharp-featured girl who was already moving towards the newly-revealed exit. Connor had a bet with Sir Anthony that the girl would outlast the General’s favourite, the oldest of the boys.

Ackerman smiled nastily. “We take thirteen in each cohort,” he said, letting the implication hang.

“Galahad,” Merlin said, very quietly. “Arthur wants a quick word.”

Taking a sip of his brandy, Harry waited. Arthur’s voice, when he spoke, was also quiet. Soft and precise, as if he was choosing his words very carefully.

“Galahad, I want you to listen to me. Whatever plans you may have to intervene in this evening’s events, I must ask you to set them aside.”

Harry tightened his grip on his glass.

“We can’t risk blowing your cover at this stage. Ackerman is too well connected and his security is top-notch.”

Harry gritted his teeth. He kept looking around, trying to get a clear view of each victim’s face so that Merlin could try and identify them.

“Merlin has told me of the identity of one of the captives,” Arthur continued. “This is no time for personal feelings, Galahad. The mission _must_ be your priority. Do _not_ blow your cover.”

It made Harry’s skin crawl to just _stand_ here, watching and waiting, but the reality was that Arthur was right: he had to control his emotions, because all the training in the world wasn’t going to get him very far against Ackerman’s security team with no weapons, no ready means of escape, and the encumbrance of multiple civilians even if by some miracle he got them out of the building unharmed.

“That’s an _order_ , Galahad.”

And Harry was nothing if not in control.

He nodded once, sharply.

Lee’s son - _Eggsy_ \- was also moving towards the exit. He was bright enough to be wary, looking out for anything untoward as he cautiously stepped outside into the open air, moving slowly as his eyes adjusted from the brightness of the room to the darkness outside.

One of the other boys was not so cautious, running out of the building and down the shallow slope. He got no more than ten metres from the building when there was an almighty _crack_ over the speakers in the lounge, and then a scream, and the onlookers saw him fall to the ground, his broken leg still caught in the trap he’d stumbled into.

“One down,” Sir Anthony grunted.

Ackerman brought out his mobile and dialled a number. “McLean? Don’t let the others stop and help that one. I want them to run.”

Eggsy and two of the girls were clustered around the fallen boy. Harry turned around so he could watch what was happening on the big screen. He caught the eye of Nicholas Snell, who was sprawled on a recliner in front of the screen. The lawyer grinned at him.

“Good, isn’t it?”

“Top class entertainment,” Harry said. Snell didn’t seem to notice his lack of enthusiasm.

“Don’t worry,” Ackerman said dismissively. “My men will get them moving.” His sharp gaze flickered over his guests, appraising each in turn before settling on Woolford. “Perhaps you’d like to make the first kill, Peter.”

Woolford grinned foolishly and gestured for a refill of his glass. “Be happy to.”

Harry glanced at the screen, just in time to see a burly man he could only assume was Keith McLean stride across the open ground and send Eggsy sprawling with a vicious backhand blow to the face. The two girls ran, almost falling over themselves in their hurry to get away. Eggsy regained his feet, stumbling a little. Harry didn’t blame him; the blow must have almost knocked him unconscious. Harry could only hope the boy would have the sense to do what he was told.

“Cocky little thing, isn’t he?” Margaret Connor said, disapproval in her tone and facial expression. On screen, Eggsy - to Harry’s dismay - was squaring up to the bigger man. McLean had a head and more of height on him, and an awful lot more bulk.

“Won’t do him much good,” Snell said. “Although, if he wants to make himself a good target by standing where he is, who are we to stand in his way?”

“I think Sir Henry would mind,” Hannah Auld said softly. There was nothing kind in the way she said it.

Margaret Connor’s expression became even more disapproving.

On screen, McLean easily deflected Eggsy’s wild lunge at him, lifting the boy off his feet and throwing him through the air. Eggsy hit the ground hard, and for an awful second Harry thought he might have broken his arm, but Eggsy managed to get himself into a crouching position just in time for McLean to pull out a gun - a Glock 22, Harry noted absently - and shoot the boy with the broken leg in the belly. 

Woolford made an outraged noise. “Tha’ was supposed to be my kill!” he complained loudly, waving his already half-drained glass for emphasis.

“It still is,” Ackerman soothed. He glanced up at the entryway, where a woman had come in. “And Miss Cooper here will take you down and help you choose a weapon in order to make it.”

Harry looked at the screen - where Eggsy was having some kind of conversation, or perhaps an argument, with McLean - and then met Sir Anthony’s eyes. The General glanced at Woolford, and then back at Harry, and rolled his eyes. Harry allowed himself a small shrug of acknowledgement.

Woolford sickened him, no doubt about that. But Harry found the rest of them equally despicable. None of them had batted an eyelid at McLean shooting the injured boy. None of them had made so much of a squeak of protest.

After draining the last of his brandy, Woolford staggered off in the company of the woman, who looked to be another member of the security team, and with him gone the atmosphere seemed to ease a little. Woolford, Harry thought, would probably not receive another invitation to Fetheray.

He risked another glance at the screen. Eggsy had vanished from view. McLean turned, and Harry recoiled a little at the sight of the man’s scarred, brutish face. Ackerman noticed his reaction, naturally.

“You mustn’t judge Mr McLean too harshly, Sir Henry,” he said, smiling. “My head of security has a face only a mother could love, but he is very, very good at what he does.”

Melanie had entered the lounge as Woolford left and she was circulating now, checking that the food and drink provided was adequate. She looked rather pale and unhappy, and Harry suspected she didn’t much like these events. It was the first sign of any kind of empathy he’d seen so far from any of Ackerman’s employees - either that or she simply didn’t like the sight of blood.

Under Melanie's direction, other panels were slid aside to reveal more screens set into the walls. These displayed various information sources, from maps and elevations of the island to a split-screen view from the drone cameras to an information panel on each of the captives. Harry frowned as he noted the biometric readings on each; whether they knew it or not, each captive was being tracked.

"Hardly a fair contest, is it?" he remarked to Sir Anthony.

He thought for a moment he might have gone too far and stepped outside Sir Henry's persona, but to his relief the General nodded.

"One of McLean's little innovations. Not a fan, myself. Takes some of the sport out of it."

"You've been to a few of these events before, I take it?"

Sir Anthony snagged himself another glass of brandy from a passing server. "I'm here two or three times a year. Depends how often I can get away. Duty calls, and all that."

"I remember it very well," Harry said, with a certain amount of feeling. Sir Anthony nodded.

"Ackerman makes some strange choices sometimes," he confided. "Our Mrs Justice Auld, now - she's an old hand. Cool as a cucumber, and a crack shot. Then you have the likes of Woolford, pickled before midnight. McLean will probably have to hold the gun for him."

Harry laughed politely. "One almost wonders why he was invited."

Sir Anthony winked. "Money, of course. Ackerman may be rolling in the stuff but he's always on the lookout for more." Sir Anthony was, like so many older men in positions of power, something of a gossip. "And of course, Ackerman also has his eye on Woolford's sister, Sarah. She won't give him the time of day and he thinks that if he can get the brother onside he might have a chance."

Harry was profoundly uninterested in Ackerman's romantic aspirations but he was sure Merlin was already getting to work looking into Sarah Woolford in case there was anything there of interest. Instead he looked around the room.

"I was rather struck by the make-up of our little group, I must admit." He had already noted Snell's wedding ring, and he knew Margaret Connor was married to another, rather less successful MP. "No husbands and wives," he clarified.

The General snorted. "Wouldn't catch my wife up here, I can tell you that. Not her scene at all. But no, Ackerman chooses who he wants to invite. Strictly business, you understand." He winked at Harry again. "Mr Ackerman can be a powerful friend, Sir Henry. Play your cards right and you'll find that out for yourself." His gaze turned briefly speculative. "You're not married, I take it." It wasn't a question.

"No." They hadn't determined too many details about Sir Henry’s personal life in advance, feeling it better to leave the option open for Harry to exploit as he chose. Harry could play the ladies’ man perfectly well when the situation called for it, but there didn't seem to be much point in deception in the present circumstances. "I prefer male company," he said blandly.

Sir Anthony merely nodded. "Thought as much," he said, no judgement or hostility in his tone. "Got your eye on the stubborn one, have you? Not a bad pick. Royal Marines, or at least he would have been, if he'd finished his training. Excellent record."

Harry hadn't known that, and another wave of nausea washed over him, mixed in with a little guilt that he hadn’t kept tabs on Lee’s son. “One wonders how he ended up here," he managed.

"No mystery about it," the General said dismissively. "Bad stock. What do you expect from that type? No perseverance, no moral fibre. Probably doesn't even know who his father was, and neither does his mother."

There was a crack, and a splash of wetness on his hands, and Harry realised belatedly that he'd cracked his brandy glass. A server hurried forward, a napkin held ready to mop up the spilled brandy and the blood from a small cut on Harry's palm.

"So sorry," Harry apologised to her. "I'm somewhat clumsy."

"Keep it together, Galahad," Merlin said quietly. Harry wished very much he could tell the other man exactly what he thought of _that_ suggestion as he walked over to the balcony to look down at where the drones were being prepared for launch. A quick glance at his watch told him that it had been exactly twenty minutes since the captives had been released, which meant that they had another twenty-five minutes before the drones were dispatched.

The other guests were taking varying approaches to the wait. Hannah Auld and Nagul Khan were studying the display screens, watching the markers for each captive and comparing their trajectories to the topography of the island. Snell and Margaret Connor were sitting, engrossed in conversation about a National Theatre production they had both seen. And Ackerman-

-Ackerman was watching Harry.

Harry smiled, and raised his glass in salute. Ackerman, to his relief, smiled back.

No one looked round at the sound of a gunshot - muffled by the glass but still clearly audible. There was no need for Harry to ask what had just happened. He wondered where they put the bodies.

Ackerman wasn’t watching him any more. Harry made his way over to the display screen and made no particular secret of looking for Eggsy first of all. The bulk of the captives were still an amorphous group as they ran eastwards towards the jetty, although one or two had branched off to take alternate routes. A little behind them were two dots who could only be the girls who had initially stayed behind with the injured boy, and then there was Eggsy, moving more slowly than the others and falling behind as the minutes ticked by. Harry didn't like that much: the boy must have been more badly injured in his encounter with McLean than Harry had realised. At this rate, he was going to be the first to be caught once the drones were released.

Perhaps Eggsy realised that as well, because he suddenly changed direction, turning north. Harry turned his head to look at the schematics of the island. It was an interesting choice; he would have expected the boy to turn south, following the downhill slope towards the sea. Instead he was making his way up to one of the highest parts of the island, and the combination of the terrain and whatever injuries he was carrying was rendering his progress almost painfully slow.

"There they go," Hannah Auld said, an edge of glee in her voice. She was not, as Harry had initially thought, referring to Eggsy, but rather to the larger group in front, who were finally starting to break apart. Three of them turned south, while the others continued eastward, but they were no longer running together. Now they were fanning out, trying to put distance between themselves and the others.

"Stupid, really," Khan remarked. "They think it makes it harder for the drones to find them if they split up."

"They know about the drones, then?" Harry asked. He realised that he had no idea how much the captives had been told about their situation before they were sent out to their almost certain deaths.

"They're given a very thorough briefing," Ackerman explained, strolling over from where he had been watching. "Well, mostly thorough. We leave a few surprises for them." There was a general murmur of amusement. "But yes, they know they have a head start, and they know the drones will be coming after them. They also know that my security people are out there looking for them."

Harry risked a glance at the tracking screen. Eggsy seem to have speeded up a little; he was almost at the summit. Harry couldn't work out what the boy’s thought process was, since there was no possibility of hiding in such an open area. At least the ones heading south were presumably trying to gain the sanctuary of the few trees that grow along the southern shore.

"They hardly need to go looking," Khan pointed out. He gestured at the tracking screen. "We know exactly where they are."

"That's true," Ackerman agreed. "But they don't know that."

Harry glanced at his watch again. Ten minutes to go. The wait seemed interminable, but then he wasn't running for his life across a remote and windswept island in the dark.

"Another one down," Sir Anthony remarked. He had moved closer while Harry was focused on Eggsy. He pointed to where one of the dots heading for the southern coast had suddenly stopped moving.

"Probably fallen over," Ackerman said disinterestedly. "Let's see if she gets back up."

The girl didn't. Her tracker was still showing minimal movement, so she was alive at least. Harry wasn't sure that was a kindness.

Ackerman's phone beeped quietly to alert him to a new message. Whatever the message said made Ackerman smile.

"It seems Mr Woolford was rather tired by his first successful hunt," he said dryly, tucking the phone away. "He has retired to his room and unfortunately won't be joining us for the rest of the entertainment."

Behind him, Sir Anthony snorted derisively, and Harry noticed a few amused looks being exchanged.

"Not a _repeat_ visitor, I hope, Dominic," Hannah Auld said mildly.

"I think that's safe to assume, my dear," Ackerman assured her, smiling benevolently. "And I'm sure Sir Henry here will prove to be a far more satisfactory novice."

Her gaze slid to Harry, and he very much had the sensation that he was some felon brought up before her in court, found guilty, and sent down with her undoubtedly withering words ringing in his ears. "Let's hope so," she said.

Three minutes to go. Harry felt the slight vibration of the floor under his feet as another door was opened somewhere on the lower floor. Ackerman's technicians were readying the drones, preparing for launch. An air of anticipation and quiet excitement had filled the lounge area, and all the guests were now clustered around the screens, silent as they watched the eleven remaining dots on the screen and waited for the hunt to begin.

A klaxon sounded, signalling the start of the thirty-second countdown. Harry drained the last of his brandy, managing by supreme effort of will not to crush another glass. Eleven dots, eleven _human beings_ who didn't deserve to be hunted down and murdered for the entertainment of some sick bastards who-

\- Harry blinked.

Where once there had been eleven dots, there were now ten.

Eggsy had disappeared.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry and Eggsy finally meet face to face. It doesn't go well,

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for brief, non-specific discussion of implied non-con right at the end of this chapter

Within an hour, there were only six dots remaining on the screen and the massacre - for Harry could think of no other way to describe it - was in full swing.

The injured girl, and a boy who had stumbled on the shoreline and twisted his ankle, were the first casualties once the drones located them. Flying just above head height and fast, they could cover ground much quicker than a human, and their night vision lenses gave their operators a significant advantage over their quarry. Once it had been confirmed that both were immobilised, Margaret Connor had been the first to set out in the company of one of Ackerman's men, a cruel twist to her mouth as she said her farewells to the other guests. Sir Anthony, Hannah Auld, and Nicholas Snell had departed soon after. That left Harry with Ackerman himself and Nagul Khan.

"Picked your target yet?" Ackerman asked Khan.

Khan frowned, peering at the screen. It was not the first time Harry had noticed him doing that, and he rather thought the man needed glasses and was just too vain to admit it.

"Those two, I think," he said, frowning. He pointed to where two dots were moving rapidly eastwards. A drone was flying around thirty feet behind them, although neither seemed to have realised that they were being pursued.

"Excellent choice," Ackerman said approvingly. "I would suggest you ask Monaghan to take you to the ridge, here." He tapped the screen for emphasis. "One at least will be a relatively easy shot, the second perhaps a little of a challenge."

Harry had already noticed that there was a significant divide between those who liked the close-in kill, and those who preferred to play sniper, hidden from view. Khan was apparently one of the latter group.

"And you, Sir Henry?" Ackerman turned to Harry with a smile. "What will you choose? I will, of course, give way to my guests on this."

Harry drained the last of his brandy. He rather thought he'd drunk enough. "I thought I'd find your missing competitor," he said carelessly. "Since your men seem to be having difficulty locating him."

Ackerman's jaw tightened a little. Harry had watched him gradually become more and more agitated as the minutes ticked by and Eggsy remained elusive, despite the best efforts of Ackerman’s security team to locate him. The first drone sent after him had shown the brief image of what was clearly Eggsy's discarded jacket - which contained the tracker - before the camera had abruptly gone dark and the operator had reported loss of contact with the drone. Since then, there had been nothing: a second drone had not been able to find Eggsy in the area where he had gone missing and neither was there any sign of the first drone.

“I can assure you that we will track him down, Sir Henry,” Ackerman said. “Fetheray is a small island and my men are very good at their jobs.”

“And yet he seems to be running rings around them presently,” Harry observed. “Never mind; I’m sure I can find him. We wouldn’t want him to be the first successful candidate, now would we?”

"As you wish, Sir Henry,” Ackerman said stiffly. “However, I must insist that you take two of my men with you. The boy is clearly resourceful, and I would not wish one of my guests to come to any harm."

"That's very thoughtful of you," Harry said courteously. He could not bring himself to wish the other man good hunting.

"Harry," Merlin said urgently in his ear. "I know what you’re doing. This is a very bad idea. You heard what Arthur said."

Harry ignored him. He followed one of Ackerman's security men down to the lower level, where he was given a thick weatherproof jacket to wear and shown a selection of weaponry to make his choice from. Harry took a Glock over an SR-25, and the heft of it in his hand was a visceral reminder that there was nothing _civilised_ about what was going on on Fetheray that night.

"All ready, sir?" one of the man asked.

Harry couldn't quite place the man's accent: South African, perhaps. "Yes, thank you. Shall we get going?"

“This way, sir.”

Harry wasn't quite sure what he'd expected - a car, perhaps, or a golf buggy to ferry them around the island. What he got was an ex-Search & Rescue Hägglunds Bandvagn 206, a tracked amphibious articulated personnel carrier and trailer that made enough noise to wake the dead once the engine was fired up.

"Easiest way to get around the northern part of the island, sir," the other man explained when he saw Harry’s surprise.

"Not exactly built for stealth, is it?" Harry cautiously made himself comfortable in the passenger seat. It was hard to hear himself _think_ over the noise of the engine, and he certainly wouldn't be able to hear anything Merlin said.

The man grinned. "Don't need stealth, sir. We'll flush him out for you, don't worry. If you prefer to hunt him on foot once we locate him, that can be easily arranged."

Harry braced himself against the door and the floor as they set off. The first thirty yards or so weren't too bad, but once they left the tarmac area outside the building the ride was so rough Harry felt that his spine was in danger of vibrating out of his body. The Bv206 was by no means a luxury means of transport and the suspension was virtually non-existent.

They had travelled perhaps a little less than half a mile when the man in the back seat suddenly leaned forward and tapped the driver on the shoulder. He had been intermittently speaking into his radio, too quietly for Harry to hear over the engine, but now he raised his voice.

"They've spotted him. Turn towards the inlet. He is near the top of the cliffs."

The engine note changed and Harry was thrown towards the door as the driver made a quick turn.

"My apologies, Sir Henry," the driver said loudly, not sounding particularly repentant. "We will cut him off, so he can't double back."

Harry stared ahead, trying to pick out something, anything, from the all-consuming darkness around them. Fetheray really was a barren landscape, and he couldn't believe Eggsy had managed to evade detection for so long. There were few places to hide and it was no real surprise that there had never been any survivors in Ackerman’s hunts. It was also very dark away from the buildings and the lights of the Bv206 did more to outline the shadows than illuminate the darkness. Harry could only hope that the driver knew where he was going. It was far too easy to imagine them careering over a cliff and into the sea, and if they landed upside down the Hägglunds’ amphibious qualities wouldn't do much to help them.

They were travelling downhill now, although there were no visual clues to their rate of descent. Harry felt for the reassuring weight of the Glock and briefly debated taking out the two security men before discarding the idea. Even if he managed to somehow find Eggsy and convince the boy that he meant him no harm, they would still have to find some way to escape the island with the rest of Ackerman's security team on their heels.

"There he is!" the man in the back seat yelled, leaning forward to point at the windscreen. At that same moment, Harry saw him too.

Eggsy was not running. He was making no effort to get away from them; instead he stood motionless in the light of the Bv206's headlights, staring them down defiantly. Even at this distance, Harry could see him shivering, and whether that was fear or cold or a combination of both was impossible to say.

"Stop here," he told the driver, but the man shook his head.

"Not close enough, sir. A little more." He floored the accelerator, and the Bv206's speed increased. They were running on rock now, travelling along the very edge of the cliff itself, the tracks skidding a little on the damp vegetation that grew in the fissures.

Up ahead, Eggsy folded his arms and, in that same moment, the ground in front of the Bc206 gave way.

Harry had time to both see and admire what Eggsy had done as the Hägglunds lurched sideways and he was thrown against the door again, hard enough to bruise. Somehow, in the darkness and while running for his life, the boy had been resourceful enough to lay a trap for his pursuers, to drag clumps of vegetation across the narrow crevice in the rock, obscuring it just enough that the driver of the Bv206 couldn’t see it until it was too late.

The slide should have been recoverable. The four powered tracks of the Hägglunds should have enabled the driver to pull it back, but the man panicked, throwing the wheel over and stamping down on the accelerator. Instead of regaining solid ground, the Bv206 veered sharply towards the edge of the cliff, where the crevice widened.

Harry didn’t waste time shouting a warning; he scrambled for the short length of string that functioned as a door handle and yanked it down. The ground beneath the Bv206 dropped away as the fissure widened and Harry somehow managed to get the door open and hurl himself out of the vehicle a split second before the Hägglunds roared out over the abyss and hung suspended for a moment before plummeting to the base of the cliff.

It was suddenly very, very quiet. Harry could hear the waves breaking against the rocks far below.

He dug his fingers into the damp moss that covered the rock he was lying on and tried to get his breath back. He'd taken a hard blow to the ribs from the door, and picked up a good few bruises from the impact with the ground, but he was alive and whole. He flexed his fingers, wincing at the pain in his wrist. It wasn’t broken, but it was going to hurt like hell in the morning. He fumbled for the Glock and cursed as he realised he’d lost it in his frantic dive for safety.

“Merlin,” he hissed urgently. There was no response. Harry felt over his glasses and couldn’t detect any damage - but that didn’t mean there wasn’t any. “Merlin,” he tried again. Still nothing.

Harry pushed himself up to his knees, wincing, and crawled towards the cliff edge, expecting any moment to see Ackerman’s men climbing to meet him.

Even in the poor light, one glance told him that neither man was going to be doing any climbing ever again. The Hägglunds lay on its roof at the bottom of the cliff, partly submerged. Harry sighed, turning his head, and as he did so he caught the movement of air that alerted him - too late - to Eggsy’s presence.

Harry only just managed to bring his arm up in time to deflect the blow as Eggsy launched his attack. The shock of it - Eggsy had been aiming to crush his skull with the rock he held - reverberated the length of Harry’s arm and the pain of it nearly sent him to the ground. Eggsy reared away, regrouping for another attack.

Harry cursed his own oversight. He’d been distracted by the loss of the Glock and his own injuries, and too quick to assume Eggsy would have fled the scene. As Eggsy came at him again, Harry desperately twisted away, getting a hard blow to the kidneys for his trouble. He kicked out, somehow making contact with the back of Eggsy’s knee, and the boy stumbled forward, off-balance just long enough for Harry to knock him down and pin him there, trapped between Harry’s knees with Harry’s good hand on the back of his neck.

“Stay _still_ ,” Harry snarled, but Eggsy was fighting for his life and he was in no mood to listen, bucking up against Harry’s weight and trying to twist away from the hold Harry had on him. There was no time to reason with him - any minute now more of Ackerman’s men would be on the scene and they wouldn’t hesitate to shoot Eggsy if they thought he was a threat to one of the guests.

Harry sent up a silent prayer for forgiveness, got a hand in Eggsy’s hair, and banged his head, hard, against the rock he was sprawled on.

Eggsy went still. He wasn’t unconscious - Harry checked, very carefully  - and the blow hadn’t even broken the skin, but the fight had gone out of him and he only moaned brokenly when Harry deftly unbuckled his belt and used it to bind his hands behind his back. That done, Harry sat back on his heels and tried to think.

“Merlin,” he tried again, not really expecting an answer.

Silence.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Harry said feelingly. He looked down at Eggsy. Ackerman - and Ackerman’s security team - were not going to be at _all_ happy about tonight’s events. Bad enough that one of the _dregs_ had evaded them for so long; he’d cost them two men as well with his little trap. They’d want their pound of flesh, and there was no way Eggsy would get an easy or quick death at their hands.

It had been a _good_ trap though, Harry thought. Eggsy was a smart one; there was no doubt about that. As brave as Lee had been, and ingenious with it.

“It’s going to be all right,” he told Eggsy, for want of anything else to say. “Stay still.”

Eggsy didn’t respond. Harry thought he might have passed out, but his pulse was strong and steady and he didn’t seem to be in any immediate danger.

It was the work of a few minutes to tidy away the evidence of what Eggsy had done; it would have taken half the time but Harry’s left arm was becoming increasingly stiff and painful. By the time he was satisfied, Harry could hear the rumble of an engine, somewhere in the distance, and the higher pitched noise of a drone getting closer. He settled himself next to Eggsy and took a few deep breaths, trying to push himself back into Sir Henry’s mindset.

It felt like hours but in reality it must have been less than a quarter of an hour before a vehicle pulled up further up the hillside and four figures cautiously descended to where Harry was waiting. One of them was Emilia Kmiec.

“What happened?” she demanded peremptorily of Harry. She held a flashlight in the hand that wasn’t holding a gun and she wasted no time in playing it over both of them, inspecting them closely. “Where are my men?”

Blinking against the glare of the flashlight, Harry indicated the general direction of the cliff edge. “I’m afraid they went over the side. A rather poor piece of driving. I was lucky to escape with my life.”

He couldn’t see her expression but Harry could hear the suspicion in her voice. “They drove over?”

Harry shrugged. “I don’t know what happened. We were going very quickly. It all happened so fast.”

The security men were fanning out, peering over the cliff edge. Harry knew they'd spotted the shattered remnants of the Bv206 when one of them jerked forward, elbowing the man next to him.

"Can you see them?" Kmiec demanded. Instead of waiting for an answer, she strode over to look for herself and stood for a moment staring over the edge

"Shall we climb down to them?" one of the men asked. "Perhaps if we-"

"No," Kmiec cut him off. "It can be recovered in daylight." She turned back to Harry. "You were lucky to survive."

"I know," Harry said, with genuine feeling.

Kmiec stepped closer, crouching down to get a better look at Eggsy. “You captured him,” she said, sounding almost surprised. She poked at the bruise on his forehead and Eggsy made a small, hurt noise.

Harry shrugged again. “What can I say?” he said carelessly. “He was entertaining.”

“You are injured?”

“Not badly,” Harry assured her.

“We can arrange medical attention for you back at the house.” She laughed then; a harsh, cruel sound. “Do you want to kill him like this, or shall I make him run for you? It’s more fun when they are trying to get away.”

Harry fought down the urge to throw her over the cliff to join her fellows. “Neither,” he said smoothly. He placed a possessive hand on Eggsy, right over the swell of his backside. “I would prefer to _enjoy_ him first.”

It said a lot, Harry thought, that Kmiec did not seem particularly surprised. It was clearly not the first time a guest had expressed a desire to force themselves on one of the captives. “Here?” was all she asked.

“Certainly not,” Harry said with genuine feeling. “Let’s take him back to the house. He needs to be cleaned up, for a start. And,” he added, “I intend to take my time with him. _Repay_ him. Before I kill him.”

“You’re a man after my own heart, Sir Henry,” she said approvingly, moving aside and gesturing to one of the men to take Eggsy. The boy didn’t resist as he was dragged to his feet. “If you’d like to follow me, the car is over there.”

“Thank you,” Harry said courteously, since there was nothing else he could do. “Very kind of you.”

He followed her up the hillside to the dirt track that ran out across the island. Harry made a point of playing up Sir Henry’s lack of physical fitness; it wouldn’t do to make the steep climb look too easy. He noted the way Kmiec’s men took no chances with Eggsy as they half-dragged, half-carried him up the hillside: Harry’s makeshift bonds were replaced by zip ties around Eggsy’s wrists and ankles, rendering him immobile even though the boy wasn’t putting up any kind of fight.

It wasn’t the end of it, of course. Harry had no doubts whatsoever that he was under surveillance right now, and he still had no contact with Merlin. If he was going to survive the night - if _Eggsy_ was going to survive the night - then he had to demonstrate to them that Sir Henry was every bit the bastard Ackerman thought he was.

Whatever the cost.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Out of contact with Kingsman and knowing that one slip could cost them both their lives, Harry makes certain choices in order to keep Eggsy - and himself - alive.
> 
> Eggsy might not forgive him for it: Harry knows he won't forgive himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I said this wasn't a nice, fluffy story, I had this chapter (and the next one, to a lesser extent) in mind. 
> 
> While what happens between Harry & Eggsy in this chapter isn't what the bad guys think it is, it's still a (non-graphic) sexual assault - please take this into consideration and feel free to skip if it's not something you're comfortable reading.
> 
> Just to make it clear - Harry is play-acting at being a bastard because he's desperately trying to keep Eggsy alive in a hostile environment, but Eggsy, at this point, doesn't know that.

Harry was greeted by the unwelcome sight of McLean striding towards them when the car pulled up. He schooled his features into a mask of calm placidity but he couldn’t stop his hands clenching into fists as he exited the car. He didn’t have to look directly at McLean to see that the man was practically vibrating with barely-suppressed fury and frustration, itching for a confrontation. News of the Hägglunds’ demise had clearly spread quickly, and fifteen or so of McLean’s men were milling around the floodlit area in front of the building, grim faced.

“What happened?” McLean demanded of Kmiec. His gaze went past her, to where her men were dragging a still semi-conscious Eggsy out of the back of the car, and his expression darkened.

“The Hägglunds went over the cliff,” Kmiec said briefly. “Sir Henry here managed to escape, the others were not so lucky.”

It was impossible to tell just from her tone whether she believed the story Harry had told or not. Harry calculated they were probably safe until daylight at least; once the sun rose the security team would be keen to recover the Bv206 and the bodies of their fellow guards and Kmiec was sharp enough to scour the cliff edge for evidence of what had happened. Any evidence that Harry might have neglected to conceal.

“Over the _cliff_?” McLean said incredulously. “What the hell were those fools playing at?”

“The driver was driving a little fast,” Harry offered helpfully.

McLean spared Harry the briefest of glances before addressing Kmiec again. “Who was driving?”

“Michaelson,” Kmiec said scornfully. “It’s a shame his driving ability couldn’t keep up with his mouth.” She turned to Harry. “I’m sorry, Sir Henry. A frightening experience for you.”

“There’s really nothing to apologise for.” Making conversation with these two made Harry’s skin crawl but he had to maintain the facade. Sir Henry wouldn’t care much for the lives of two security guards. “I caught my quarry, as you can see.”

“Indeed,” Kmiec said coldly. She glanced at McLean. " _This_ was captured by Sir Henry.”

“Still alive? Some good news at least,” McLean grunted. “Not for him though." He took a step forward, towards Eggsy. "He’s going to beg me for death by the time I’m done with him.”

Harry moved swiftly to intervene.“The boy is _mine_ , I believe.”

McLean kept going and Harry thought, just for a moment, that the other man would ignore his interjection, but Kmiec proved to be an unlikely and unexpected ally.

“Sir Henry wishes to … make use of him,” she said, before McLean could get any closer to Eggsy.

McLean stopped, looking between them.

“Indeed,” Harry said casually. “It’s a shame you marked him up before I got my hands on him, Mr McLean. I prefer them _unspoiled_.”

McLean hesitated, but despite his fury he was no fool, and he wasn’t going to openly challenge Harry and risk him running back to Ackerman. “My apologies, Sir Henry,” he said, sounding entirely unapologetic about it. “We’ll get him cleaned up for you and brought to your suite.”

“That’s very kind.” Harry turned to Kmiec. “And I should thank you for coming out to retrieve me; it would have been a long walk back.”

She smiled, and Harry thought it made her look rather like a cat, one of the big cats, the type that looked unassuming right up until the moment it tore your throat out. “We have a doctor to see to your injuries, Sir Henry.”

Harry smiled ruefully. “That would certainly be appreciated. The boy put up rather more of a fight than I was expecting. He’s certainly resourceful.”

McLean made a sound that might have been a growl but it was Kmiec who spoke, quickly enough that Harry thought she probably had long experience in cutting McLean off before he said something less than diplomatic.

“If you will please follow Pierre here, Sir Henry…”

Harry dutifully followed the man she had indicated, resisting the urge to look back at Eggsy. Showing too much care would do neither of them any favours; he could only hope that McLean and Kmiec would be more concerned with keeping one of Ackerman's guests happy by leaving Eggsy _unmarked_ than taking their revenge on the captive who had first given them the slip and subsequently cost them both a vehicle and the lives of two men.

The doctor, a middle-aged Frenchman who took one look at Harry before shaking his head sadly in the manner of one delivering a terminal prognosis to a patient, patched up Harry’s injuries with brisk efficiency before pronouncing him more or less healthy and passing him into the care of Melanie Curtis. She looked exhausted: not surprising, Harry thought, since it was getting on for 3 AM. The smile she gave Harry looked distinctly strained.

“How are you feeling, Sir Henry?”

“Sore,” Harry said. That, at least, was not a lie. The doctor had offered him stronger painkillers but Harry had settled on paracetamol, not wanting to be in any way impaired in view of what still had to be done. “And rather tired.” That was a serious understatement; Harry felt like he could happily sleep for a week.

"Would you like anything to eat or drink, Sir Henry? It can be brought to your suite, of course."

Harry wasn't remotely hungry but he had Eggsy to consider in addition to himself; he doubted that Ackerman's security would concern themselves with feeding the boy. He asked for, and was promised, an omelette, along with fruit juice and mineral water.

“Just have it left if I’m … occupied when it arrives. I don’t wish to be disturbed.”

“Of course, Sir Henry.” She managed another strained smile and hurried away.

Left alone, Harry took the opportunity to have a quick look around, but it was clear that Ackerman’s operation was closing down for the night. There was no sign of any of the other guests and every screen was dark, the wooden shutters closed. Harry tapped at his glasses again but he didn't dare try to raise Merlin again, not here. There was a - faint - possibility the glasses were still recording, so he made sure to pace a careful circuit around the room, taking in every detail for later analysis.

Melanie returned soon after with the confirmation that his food would arrive shortly. "If you'd like to follow me to the house, Sir Henry," she said politely. "We're locking up this building shortly."

"Am I the last to return, then?" Harry asked. He winced as he walked up the steps; Eggsy had left his own souvenir in the form of what Harry was sure would be a truly spectacular bruise across his lower back.

"Oh yes. Most of the others have gone to bed already. Mr Ackerman is still awake, but he's catching up on some paperwork in his office."

This was an unwelcome development; the last thing Harry wanted right now was any kind of encounter with or interference from Ackerman. But, before he could say anything, Melanie continued:

"I'm afraid we can't disturb him. Mr Ackerman is very firm about that."

"Heaven forbid," Harry said with feeling. “Does he suffer from insomnia?”

“Oh, Mr Ackerman keeps his own hours,” Melanie said with a smile. “Especially when he’s here on Fetheray.”

“And you?” Harry enquired. “Do you keep your own hours?”

She smiled again, giving nothing away. “My duties revolve around Mr Ackerman’s calendar, obviously.”

The rain was sluicing down as they stepped outside and Harry was extremely grateful for the umbrella Melanie carried even for the few short steps between the building and the first tower. He had time to note, however, that the area around the tower was deserted, and there was no sign of any of the security team.

"There's a storm coming in," Melanie said, almost apologetically, as she closed the door behind them. "It's lucky you weren't caught out there much longer."

"How bad is it going to get?" Harry could already hear the wind whistling around the bridge and the rain hammering against the windows as the lift rose smoothly towards the uppermost floor. If Arthur had already given the order to send Lancelot in, then the other agent would have a singularly unpleasant sea to cross to reach Fetheray. Of course, Harry had no means of knowing whether Lancelot was on his way or not and, even if Lancelot reached Fetheray safely and without being detected by Ackerman's security, no way of contacting him.

It was impossibly frustrating.

And James would never, _ever_ let him live down the shame of having to be rescued.

“Oh, I’m sure it will have passed by this evening, or tomorrow morning at the latest,” Melanie assured him, bringing him back to the present. “There’ll be no problem getting everyone away on time. And we’re stocked up on anything we might need.”

"What of my ... acquisition?" Harry asked. "I hope Mr McLean is taking care not to damage the merchandise."

"He'll be waiting for you in your suite, Sir Henry," Melanie said. If she was in any way disgusted by the clear implication of Sir Henry's motivation for sparing Eggsy's life, at least temporarily, she gave no sign of it. Perhaps, Harry thought, it rather paled into insignificance compared to mass murder.

“Let’s hope the evening continues to be as entertaining as it has been to date.” Harry forced a smile onto his face as he said it. “Do you shoot, Miss Curtis?”

Melanie shook her head. “No, Sir Henry, I’m just Mr Ackerman’s PA. I’m deadly with his appointments calendar, but guns aren’t really my thing.”

It was the second lie she’d told Harry, less well-disguised that the first, perhaps because she was tired and off-guard with an equally tired and injured guest. It made Harry look at her a little more closely, because while she’d seemed genuinely distressed earlier, that lie forced him to mentally reclassify her from _bystander_ to _threat_.

The house itself was quiet and also mostly deserted, with the exception of a few cleaners moving around the public areas. Harry parted ways with Melanie at the foot of the main staircase and made his way upstairs alone, trying very hard to make as little noise as possible in case he attracted Ackerman's attention and the man insisted on making conversation or, worse, insisted on witnessing Harry's treatment of Eggsy.

The situation was bad enough without _that_ complication.

Eggsy was, as promised, waiting for him in his suite. Harry shut the door behind him and took a deep breath, stealing himself for what had to be done. There was no point trying to explain anything to Eggsy, not here, not now, not with everything that had already happened and Ackerman's bugs in this room and the bedroom. Harry couldn't take the risk, couldn't rely on Eggsy not giving him away.

Harry removed his glasses and tucked them into his jacket. If by some miracle the glasses were still recording, he didn’t want a record of this. He took off his jacket - slowly; his arm still hurt - and hung it on the coat stand next to the door before stepping further into the room.

Eggsy glared at him as Harry approached. Whatever McLean and his men had done to him in the short time since Harry had seen him last, he'd lost none of his defiance. If anything, he seemed much more alert, which wasn't entirely welcome, from Harry's perspective. Even stripped naked, gagged with tape, and bound on his knees on the floor, he still looked ready to take Harry on all over again. At any other time, Harry might have enjoyed the view but there was nothing enticing or arousing about the situation they were in.

Eggsy kept his eyes on Harry as Harry came towards him, proud and defiant as Harry brushed a finger against the bruise on Eggsy's cheekbone, the one McLean had given him. Eggsy recoiled from the touch, letting loose what Harry was sure was a volley of colourful curses behind the gag.

"I hope your captors treated you a little more carefully while they were cleaning you up?"

Eggsy gave him a furious look but, given the lack of fresh bruises, Harry was inclined to take that as a _yes_. From where he stood, he had a good view of the mottled patchwork of bruises and abrasions down Eggsy's side, where he'd landed when McLean hurled him away. Harry didn't think anything was broken, but it probably hurt like hell. Whoever had placed Eggsy in his suite had also - no doubt deliberately - tied him cruelly: his wrists were tightly bound behind him and then to his ankles, and a further binding ran from a metal ring set into the back of the leather collar that encircled his neck to his bound wrists, curving his spine into a painful arch and forcing him to keep his head held high, unless he wanted to strangle himself.

Harry made a pretence of checking his watch while he scanned the room for surveillance equipment in case Ackerman's staff had sneaked in a few more devices. Nothing had changed, however. While there was a camera in the sitting room, in the bedroom there was only an audio bug. That was one blessing, at least. 

Harry traced the line of the collar around Eggsy's neck, feeling the frantic thrum of his pulse as Eggsy strained against his bonds.

"Stop that," Harry said sharply. The last thing he wanted was the boy doing himself an injury trying to get free. The ropes were already taut and every time he struggled Eggsy was only pulling them tighter.

Eggsy's response was unintelligible but Harry could take a good guess at the general content. He felt for the metal ring at the back of Eggsy’s collar, and carefully unfastened the rope.

"That should make it a little easier for you to breathe," he told Eggsy, making sure to keep his expression neutral for the benefit of the camera. He had no idea whether anyone was actually monitoring the surveillance system or not, but he wasn't going to take the chance. “I wouldn’t want you to pass out at this stage of the proceedings.”

He unfastened the rope tying Eggsy’s wrists to his ankles next, and loosened off the rope around his ankles enough to allow Eggsy to move under his own steam, but Harry had no intention of untying Eggsy any further. Hooking a finger under Eggsy’s collar, he pulled the boy to his feet and manhandled him towards the bedroom. Harry was expecting resistance, but the sheer _force_ of Eggsy’s reaction when he realised where they were headed nearly caught him off-guard, and Harry only narrowly avoided a particularly vicious head butt as Eggsy lunged towards him.

“Enough!” The blow wasn’t as hard as it would look on camera, and Harry made sure to deliver it to the side of Eggsy’s head and not his face, but it was still forceful enough to send Eggsy reeling, and he would have fallen save for Harry’s hold on his arm. “You’re only making it worse for yourself. This is happening whether you like it or not.”

The glare Eggsy gave him was murderous but Harry could feel the tremor in his limbs and see the pallor of his face and he knew the truth: Eggsy was _terrified_. Ruthlessly tamping down on the instinctive urge to comfort the boy, Harry pushed him bodily onto the bed and kicked the bedroom door closed behind them. They were out of view of the camera now.

Eggsy wasted no time in twisting away, trying to get off the bed again. When Harry took hold of his ankle, trying to keep him still, Eggsy responded with a powerful kick with both feet aimed at Harry’s crotch. Harry only just managed to avoid it.

“Do that again,” Harry said angrily, only partly for the benefit of the bug, “and you and I are going to have a problem.”

Eggsy responded with yet another round of unintelligible cursing but for all that he was still struggling Harry could spot the tell-tale signs of exhaustion setting in. Eggsy wasn’t out of shape but he wasn’t a trained soldier either, and the night’s physical exertion, combined with the pain and terror, was taking its toll. If Harry hadn’t captured him, he might have survived for a few more hours at best, but the security team would have had him eventually, if hypothermia hadn’t claimed him first

“Are you going to stay still?” he demanded.

Eggsy’s response was another abortive kick. The rope securing his wrists was rubbing the skin red raw and he was struggling to get enough oxygen with his mouth taped closed, and Harry didn’t want him to seriously injure himself. Quickly, before Eggsy could try again, Harry climbed onto the bed and straddled his hips, using his weight and the leverage of his hand between Eggsy’s shoulder blades to hold him down.

“Stay. _Still_.”

Harry wasn’t proud of himself for the way he hooked a finger in the ring at the back of Eggsy’s collar and _pulled_. Not tight enough to constrict Eggsy’s breathing in any way, but present enough to act as a threat. And the threat worked, because the fight immediately went out of Eggsy and he remained limp and unresisting as Harry arranged him more comfortably on the bed, getting him up on his knees.

Ackerman’s staff had thoughtfully provided everything Sir Henry might need. Eggsy visibly flinched when Harry reached for the box of condoms on the bedside table and Harry expected some kind of violent protest, but there was nothing: no protest of any kind, and Harry frowned as he absently stroked himself to hardness. Passive acceptance on Eggsy’s part was no good to either of them. Sighing, he reached down and pinched Eggsy’s thigh, hard, nodding in satisfaction as Eggsy yelped in pain.

“That’s better,” he told Eggsy, for the benefit of whoever was listening in on this.

Harry wasn’t proud of himself for this, either. He’d feigned sexual desire before, when the mission called for it, but those times had been about seduction and his partner’s pleasure. This wasn’t anything like that. This was him trying to get himself off as quickly and efficiently as possible, a mechanical act that was at once completely disassociated from and intimately associated with the young man beneath him. It _had_ to sound convincing, had to sound like Sir Henry was forcing himself on his helpless captive, and Harry ruthlessly goaded Eggsy into producing the soft, hurt noises he needed; pinching the tender skin of his belly, pressing his fingers into the bruises running down his side, never leaving time for Eggsy to regain his composure, never allowing him the luxury of producing a sound that might give away the fact that Harry was fucking his own hand and not Eggsy’s tormented body.

His release, when it came, was sudden and almost painful, a curse torn from Harry’s throat as he slumped against Eggsy’s back. It felt like corruption, like irredeemable sin, a brand on his soul that could never be erased.

But it was done, and Eggsy lived still, and Harry had bought them both a little more time.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry & Eggsy come to something of an understanding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Following on from the last chapter, so there are some (non-graphic) references to that and some implied references to Eggsy's previous existence.

Harry didn’t dare remove the gag from Eggsy’s mouth until they were in the bathroom and the shower was running. There were speakers set into the wall, wired into the suite’s sound system, and Harry had taken the precaution of scrolling through the menus for something suitable before hauling a shivering Eggsy off the bed. The combination of the noise of the running water and Haydn’s Symphony No. 45 would render their conversation virtually inaudible to anyone listening to the bug on the other side of the door.

_Conversation_ was, however, not Harry’s first priority.

“I’m going to remove this,” Harry said softly, touching his fingers to the tape that was still wound around Eggsy’s head and over his mouth. “But you must be quiet, do you understand? If you want to have any chance of getting out of here, you must be _quiet_.”

Eggsy glared at him for a moment more, and then nodded, with obvious reluctance. Harry didn’t blame him; in Eggsy’s place he rather thought he’d want to punch himself in the face too.

The tape proved easy enough to unwind but Harry discovered that Eggsy’s mouth had been packed with a wad of fabric, and it took several tries to remove it. Eggsy, true to his unspoken promise, didn’t say anything, but he kept his eyes on Harry; a hard, unflinching, unforgiving stare.

Harry didn’t waste time trying to explain to Eggsy that he wasn’t like the others, or apologise for what he’d done. It wouldn’t mean anything to the boy and it would be rather insulting, in the circumstances. Instead he said simply:

“I knew your father.”

Eggsy blinked; clearly whatever he’d been expecting Harry to say wasn’t that.

“I can’t promise to keep you safe,” Harry continued. “And I don’t expect you to trust me. But I do want to get you out of here and I need your co-operation, Eggsy.”

The boy flinched at the sound of his name. “How the fuck do you know who I am?”

“I told you; I knew your father. You’re very like Lee.”

“Was you in the Army then? Like, an officer?”

“Something like that,” Harry said neutrally.

“You was there when he died.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes.” Harry saw no point in lying. Perhaps he’d found the key to unlocking Eggsy’s trust. “Your father was one of the bravest men I’ve ever met. If not for his actions that day, I, and many others, would have been killed. I owe him a great deal.”

Eggsy’s expression was still wary. Harry could only imagine what emotions the boy was experiencing; the mental turmoil he was suffering. He’d already endured in one night more horror than most people would ever see in their lifetime and, while he’d handled the threat to his life with surprising ingenuity and quickness of thought, he wasn’t trained for this sort of thing.

“I want to get you out of here, Eggsy,” Harry said again.

“Untie me then,” Eggsy said, raising his still-bound hands. Harry didn’t miss the small wince at the movement. The strain on his shoulders from having his hands tied so tightly behind his back was taking its toll.

Harry shook his head. "If I could be sure you wouldn't run straight out of this room, then perhaps I would."

"Where d'you think I'm going to go?" Eggsy said bitterly. "I don't know what you are, bruv, but I know what that lot outside are. And I know I ain't walking out of here. Not if they have anything to say about it."

"No," Harry said. He eyed Eggsy thoughtfully. “You're not. All right, I’ll untie you. In a moment.”

“Why not _now_?”

“Because I need to talk to you and I don’t want you to punch me in the face.”

Eggsy’s eyes narrowed. “Go on.”

"If we're going to get you out of here," Harry said carefully, "our host will need to be convinced of ... certain things."

"Like you fucking me." Eggsy was entirely matter-of-fact about such matters. Lee, as far as Harry remembered, had been very much the same.

"Indeed," he agreed.

"But you didn't," Eggsy pointed out. He leaned back a little, looking - for the first time - almost confident. "You could have done. Why didn't you? Didn't have to pretend, wank off over me.”

Eggsy’s phrasing made Harry wince but it wasn’t exactly inaccurate. “Actually I _did_. The guest suites are monitored.” Harry paused briefly during a lull in the music, waiting for the volume to regain a safe level. "It had to seem … authentic." And it had been, in any way that mattered. Harry wasn’t inclined to forgive himself for what he’d done.

It was Eggsy's turn to look thoughtful as he digested that information. “Get me untied,” he said slowly. “You need to put some marks on me.”

"Eggsy..."

"Listen to me, yeah? You think that lot are going to miss anything? You think they won't check me over? What are they going to find?"

"I'm not going to-"

"I'm not _asking_ you to." Eggsy's voice was getting uncomfortably loud but he seemed to realise without Harry having to say anything. When he spoke again it was much quieter. "You need to mark me up. Make it look like you hurt me."

He was right. Harry knew he was right, and hated him for it, just a little. "I already _have_ hurt you," he offered, looking pointedly at the reddened marks his fingers had left all over Eggsy’s belly and sides.

Eggsy gave him an exasperated look. "I bruise easy, bruv. Get to it. Are there cameras in here?"

"No." Ackerman believed in a modicum of privacy, at least. "Just the one bug in the bedroom. The camera is in the sitting room.”

"Then do it. And make it look right, yeah?"

Harry untied him first, unwilling to do anything while Eggsy was still helpless to resist. Eggsy winced as the ropes came off his reddened wrists and ankles but he didn't say anything. He didn’t make any move to punch Harry in the face, either, which Harry counted as a minor victory.

“Get this thing off me?” Eggsy tugged at the collar, grimacing.

Harry gladly obliged. “Is that better?”

“Yeah.” Eggsy managed a small, tenuous smile. “Thanks.”

"Stand up," Harry told him, after a moment's thought. He had Eggsy lean against the sink while he dug his fingers into the boy's hips, pressing hard enough that he felt Eggsy wince. Once he was satisfied that he had left marks, Harry repeated the process on Eggsy’s biceps, where he might have held him down.

 “There was lube, yeah?” Eggsy said when Harry was done. “You should bring it in here.”

Harry didn’t even bother arguing this time. He fetched the lube and handed it to Eggsy, before taking Eggsy’s place on the edge of the bath and politely looking away while Eggsy disappeared into the shower cubicle with the lube. Harry didn’t need to look to know that Eggsy was fingering himself open, and not particularly gently, either. He was also making far more noise than might be expected, enough that a casual listener might assume that Harry was fucking him again, painfully, in the shower.

Harry had to admit he was impressed by Eggsy’s inventiveness, but the boy was running on delayed shock and adrenaline right now and he’d crash soon enough.

Harry eyed his watch. He could take it all away, with a tap of his finger and a flick of the wrist. Take away the pain and the terror and the horror of tonight so that Eggsy never had to relive those memories. It would be easy, _so_ easy. Eggsy might be puzzled by the existence of his physical injuries but they would fade, in time.

But he couldn’t do it, not if he wanted to get them both out of this mess. He needed Eggsy scared. He needed him traumatised. And he couldn’t rely on Eggsy being a good enough actor to feign those emotions. For all Harry knew, he’d already doomed them both.

Harry was brought back to himself by the water shutting off. Eggsy stepped out of the shower and Harry handed him a towel without a word. Eggsy wrapped it tightly around his waist: protection, of sorts.

“It’s not like I ain’t done it before,” he blurted out.

Harry blinked, but Eggsy had already taken his momentary silence as condemnation and the words came tumbling out, accompanied by a rising flush across his cheeks.

“You don’t have to treat me like, like a fucking _princess_ , yeah? You think you’re the first posh wanker to-” His own choice of words caught up with Eggsy and he started to laugh, a laugh tinged with hysteria. “Fuck,” he said feelingly.

“Quite,” Harry agreed.

Eggsy stared at him for a moment, and Harry half-expected more words, but instead Eggsy shook his head and went over to the mirror to peer at his own reflection. Harry wasn’t sure what Eggsy saw, whether he looked better or worse than he expected. From Harry’s perspective, Eggsy looked like a boy - no, _man_ \- very near his limit.

“What’s your name?” Eggsy asked abruptly, addressing his reflection. “What do I call you?”

Harry smiled thinly. “You can call me Sir Henry.”

“And that’s your real name, is it?” Eggsy was leaning against the counter, watching him in the mirror and looking for his reaction, and Harry was reminded all over again that this man was no fool. He’d have to be as careful around Eggsy as he was with Ackerman and any of his guests.

“Yes,” Harry said blandly. “And we can discuss the finer details of our current situation _tomorrow_ , when you have had something to eat and we’ve both had some sleep. There should be an omelette waiting in the sitting room. Go and eat it, while I have a shower.”

Eggsy started to laugh again, a little less maniacally this time. “A fucking _omelette_? You think I want to _eat_? I nearly fucking died tonight, bruv.”

“I think you _need_ to eat,” Harry said tiredly. “You survived, and you’ve placed considerable demands on your body-”

“You’d know all about that, yeah?”

“-and it’s important that you eat and drink something. I think-”

“Like I give a _fuck_ what you think!” Eggsy said angrily. A flush was spreading across his cheeks; it only served to accentuate the waxy pallor of his skin.

“Just do it, Eggsy.” Harry _really_ didn’t want to argue with Eggsy about this. “Do you need any painkillers? The doctor gave me some paracetamol.”

Eggsy shook his head. “Nah, had worse.” Then, before Harry could think too deeply about the implications of _that_ statement, Eggsy pushed off the counter and headed for the door.

“Try and walk with a limp,” Harry counselled.

Eggsy gave him a furious look but, to Harry’s relief, complied.

As soon as the door closed behind him Harry lurched over to the sink and splashed cold water on his face, trying to force down a rising tide of nausea. Exhaustion, too, and Harry forced himself to undress and get in the shower before he fell asleep where he stood.

He dressed in his pyjamas in the bedroom. Eggsy had shut the door between the bedroom and sitting room behind him and Harry couldn’t hear any sounds from the outer room: he could only hope that Eggsy hadn’t decided to make a run for it after all. They hadn’t made too much of a mess of the bed but Harry straightened out the sheets and laid out his spare pyjamas - they would be far too big on Eggsy but better than the alternative - before he went through to the sitting room.

Eggsy, thankfully, was sat in the chair by the window, still dressed only in the towel, with a plate with a half-eaten ham and cheese omelette on the table in front of him. It had been delivered on a neat little tray along with the water and juice Harry had requested. Eggsy hadn’t touched the drinks.

“I hope you enjoyed that,” Harry drawled for the benefit of the surveillance devices. “And I also hope you’ve learnt your lesson.”

A series of expressions flickered over Eggsy’s face but to Harry’s relief he seemed to remember that they were under observation in this room and contented himself with sullen silence.

“Good,” Harry said. “Are you finished eating?” He picked up the glass of water.

Eggsy nodded. Now Harry had a better look at him he could see that Eggsy had been crying. He didn’t remark on it.

“Come on then.”

Eggsy followed him with understandable reluctance. Harry shut the bedroom door behind them and silently handed Eggsy the spare pyjamas, indicating that he should put them on. Eggsy didn’t look happy about getting into bed - again, understandably - but he didn’t put up any kind of protest. He even drank the water when Harry offered it to him.

Harry flicked off the light and felt his way across the room. He heard Eggsy’s breath stutter when the mattress dipped but Eggsy still didn’t say anything, just held himself perfectly still, on the far side of the bed, as Harry made himself comfortable. Harry closed his eyes, took a series of deep breaths, and went through his well-honed mental routine to push himself down into sleep. Years of snatching sleep wherever and whenever he could on long, drawn-out missions had helped him develop the technique of it but tonight Harry couldn't quite fall over the final precipice, not while he was on edge waiting for the inevitable.

Outside, the storm raged.

Harry judged it to be ten minutes or more before he heard the first hitched breath and the first quiet, almost-imperceptible sniff. Lying still and unresponsive while Eggsy wept quietly next to him, to make no move to offer comfort that would surely be unwelcome, and which might encourage Eggsy to let slip damning words in the midst of his distress, was somehow worse than anything else he had endured tonight.

But there was nothing Harry could say that would put right anything that had happened tonight.

Eventually Eggsy’s breathing evened out and he fell asleep. Night was turning to day before Harry followed suit, and even then his sleep was light and restless and ultimately unsatisfying, so that he woke shortly after noon feeling like he had not slept at all.

The other side of the bed was empty and cold. Harry carefully rolled out of bed, wincing as every muscle that had been over-taxed the previous night howled in protest. He had a headache and low-level nausea but not, he judged, anything serious in the way of concussion. His arm hurt like the devil and there was a dull, unpleasant ache across his lower back, but those were injuries he would heal from, nothing that need concern him.

Eggsy wasn't in the bathroom, although there were signs that he had used it recently: he'd taken a shower, and shaved with the spare disposable razor Harry always carried in his wash kit. That spoke well, Harry thought, to Eggsy not being beyond reason today.

Harry made sure to dress again before going through to the sitting room and he was glad he had taken the time to do so when he saw the brief spasm of panic that flashed across Eggsy's face. Eggsy was sat in the chair by the window, wrapped in a blanket he must have found in one of the cupboards in the bedroom. It reminded Harry that Eggsy no longer had any clothes save for Harry’s pyjamas, the rags of his own having been removed by Ackerman's security.

"Good morning," Harry said. His voice sounded rough, like someone had taken sandpaper to his vocal chords. "Did you manage to sleep?"

Eggsy nodded. That, apparently, was all the acknowledgement Harry was going to get. Harry glanced around the room. The remnants of the meal he'd ordered were still in the room, which meant that the housekeeping staff hadn't been in. "I suppose it's rather too late for breakfast," he remarked.

Eggsy rolled his eyes at him, and that reminded Harry, rather belatedly, that they were still under surveillance. He crossed the room to where Eggsy sat, forcing himself to ignore the alarm that sparked in Eggsy's eyes as Harry approached, the way he tried to flinch back when Harry reached for him. Harry stilled the movement by getting a hand in Eggsy's hair, and tugging his head to the side.

"I do hope," he said with studied coldness, "that you haven't forgotten the lesson I taught you."

Eggsy stared back at him, their faces only inches apart, and Harry could only hope that the other man understood what Harry was trying to tell him, what Harry couldn't say out loud. If Eggsy decided to fight him or blurt out the truth of what had happened, then Harry didn't like to think about what he might have to do. He knew what _Arthur_ would do. He knew what Arthur would be telling him right now if he was wearing his glasses.

Protect the mission. Eliminate the threat.

Eliminate _Eggsy_.

Eggsy lowered his gaze. "No," he said, very quietly. "I haven't forgotten."

Harry relinquished his hold on Eggsy's hair and stepped back, almost giddy with relief. "Good," he said, keeping his voice carefully even. "Let's hope I don't have to remind you again."

Summoning room service was as simple as pressing the discreet button on the wall but instead of the maid Harry was expecting it was Emilia Kmiec who entered the suite. Harry was instantly on alert; Kmiec, if she'd slept at all, had might have already been out to scout the cliff edge where they'd chased Eggsy down. If she'd found anything incriminating, then they were on borrowed time.

"Good morning, Sir Henry," Kmiec said politely. It was impossible to read her expression one way or another. "I hope you slept well after last night's entertainment?"

"Very well, thank you," Harry said easily, settling himself on the loveseat next to the fire.

"And the company was ... pleasing?"

Harry knew then that she'd reviewed the surveillance footage and audio from the suite - and both accepted it at face value and taken pleasure in it if the cruel tilt of her mouth and the sadistic gleam in her eyes were anything to go by.

"Pleasant for me," Harry said carelessly. "Perhaps less so for him." He nodded his head in Eggsy’s general direction.

“Do you want me to dispose of him?” she asked bluntly.

Harry caught Eggsy’s flinch in his peripheral vision. Kmiec’s vicious smirk told him she’d caught it too.

“No,” Harry said blandly. “I find him quite amusing. And rather satisfying.”

Kmiec smirked again. "The satisfaction of his guests is Mr Ackerman's priority." She glanced at Eggsy. "If you are hungry, Sir Henry, there is a buffet in the dining room. I will take this one to our equipment stores. We may be able to find some clothes for him."

The rest of it went unspoken, but Harry could read between the lines, and he was glad, now, that Eggsy had had the foresight to anticipate what might happen. They would be looking for evidence of what Harry had done.

He didn't want to let Eggsy go with her. He didn't want to let Eggsy out of his sight.

_This is no time for personal feelings, Galahad._

“Of course,” he said carelessly. “Try to return him _undamaged_ , please. I would prefer to see only the marks I inflict on him.”

He didn’t look at Eggsy as Kmiec escorted the other man from the room. He knew that he was already beyond redemption as far as Eggsy was concerned.

It didn’t matter. It _couldn_ _’t matter_. His focus had to be on getting himself and Eggsy off this island, and nothing else.

But Harry vowed to himself that he would burn Ackerman’s sordid operation to the ground and salt the earth behind it before he was done.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry finally gets the chance to talk to Eggsy properly - but with suspicions growing Harry is running out of time to come up with an escape plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some references to the events of the previous two chapters, but nothing particularly detailed.

It took a great deal of Harry's self-control to maintain Sir Henry's calm and somewhat self-satisfied facade in the face of the smiling politeness on the part of the housekeeping staff he encountered on his way to the dining room. He had to wonder how much they knew or guessed about the real purpose behind Ackerman’s little weekend gatherings. Unless Ackerman kept them under lock and key on the nights he was operating his murderous hunts, it was surely impossible for them not to know at least a little of what was going on – but Harry could see no sign of any uneasiness. It gave him little hope that he would find any ready allies amongst Ackerman's employees.

Harry found the dining room empty save for Hannah Auld, who looked like she’d slept considerably better than Harry had. She fixed Harry with a coolly considering stare and said, with more than a little acidity in her tone:

“Good afternoon, Sir Henry. How nice of you to join us.”

Harry smiled politely, ignoring the barb. “It is rather late, isn’t it? I’m afraid I slept in rather. I hope you had an entertaining evening?”

“Excellent,” she said crisply. She eyed Harry again. “It seems you had a rather more _eventful_ evening than most, Sir Henry.”

Unsure of what she already knew, Harry was saved from having to think of an immediate response by the appearance of a distinctly windswept Nicholas Snell, who looked as though he’d been outside in the gale.

“Bloody awful out there,” he remarked, confirming Harry’s supposition. “What’s for lunch?”

“Sir Henry here was about to investigate the buffet table," Hannah Auld said. “The pasta salad is very nice.”

Snell pulled a face. “All salad and rabbit food, is it? Anything hot?”

“Soup,” Harry supplied, investigating the tureen at the far end of the buffet table. “Tomato and basil.” It felt faintly ridiculous to be having a conversation about food, in the circumstances. To talk so carelessly, as if the events of last night had never happened, and this was a perfectly normal weekend getaway for a group of like-minded people and not the insouciant slaughter of innocents.

“That’ll have to do,” Snell said with considerable bad grace. “Anyone seen Woolford since this morning’s little outburst?”

That piqued Harry’s curiosity. “I must have missed that,” he said casually. To an outside eye, he might have seemed focused primarily on spooning food onto his plate.

"Dreadful man," Hannah Auld opined. "It's his own fault; he drank far too much last night."

"And this morning." Snell winked at Harry. "We all have our vices though, eh, Sir Henry?"

Harry pasted on a smile with just the right touch of sardonic cruelty to it. "I must say, my _particular_ vice results in a little less of a hangover," he said dryly.

Snell laughed unpleasantly. "I bet _he_ didn't enjoy it much."

"No." That, at least, was an easy truth. "Not at all."

“Put up a bit of a fight, did he?”

Harry smiled again. “Nothing I couldn’t handle, I assure you. And it’s rather fun when they resist. It makes breaking them down so much more enjoyable.”

"Ackerman's hopping mad, you know," Snell confided, leaning forward into Harry's personal space so that Harry had to resist the urge to step away. "I wouldn't like to be in McLean's shoes, letting that little sod lead his men a merry dance all over the island. And showing him up in front of his guests."

“I see.” Harry was starting to think he’d made the wrong decision in letting Kmiec take Eggsy with her. If she’d taken him to McLean, then Eggsy might already be dead. “I suppose it must be rather galling. Still, it did provide me with a great deal of entertainment. Along with a near-death experience.”

“Ah, yes.” Snell eyed Harry with open curiosity. “I heard about that. Lucky for you.”

“But not for my men.” Harry had not heard Ackerman enter the room and he gave a poorly-concealed start when the man spoke. Annoyed with himself - he was tired and distracted but that was no excuse for inattention - he plastered on a polite smile and turned towards his host.

“Has the rescue party found any sign of them? Is there hope of a rescue?”

Ackerman shook his head, the very picture of a vicar sadly disappointed in one of his parishioners. “I’m afraid the impact must have been fatal, Sir Henry. A terrible accident. The only saving grace is that you yourself were able to escape.”

“My lucky day,” Harry said blandly. “My condolences on the loss of your men, however.”

Ackerman did not look like he cared much for the lives of his men. Most likely, Harry thought, he did not even know their names.

“But you still managed to capture your quarry, Sir Henry,” Hannah Auld remarked. “Quite remarkable.”

Harry moved to sit down at the table, trying to think of a suitable response to a clearly pointed remark, but before he could say a word the door opened to admit Kmiec - and Eggsy.

Harry tensed, but Eggsy seemed - outwardly, at least - reasonably unharmed. Dressed in clean if not particularly well-fitting clothes, he looked much better than he did when Harry had last seen him, although still pale and apprehensive as he glanced around the room quickly before his gaze settled, disconcertingly, on Harry.

“He’s still breathing, then?” Snell said jovially, sitting down next to Harry.

“Apparently so.” Hannah Auld was watching Harry, not Eggsy. Harry was fairly sure she suspected something, and he made sure to keep his expression carefully neutral as he addressed Eggsy.

“Come here.”

Eggsy hesitated, briefly, before crossing the room to Harry. Harry wordlessly pointed at the floor.

_Kneel._

Eggsy glared at him.

“Perhaps he needs another lesson in obedience, Sir Henry,” Ackerman said softly, and Harry’s stomach gave a painful lurch: Ackerman had watched the surveillance footage.

“No,” he said, not breaking eye contact with Eggsy for a moment. “I’m sure he’s learnt very well what happens when he doesn’t do as he’s told. Haven’t you, Eggsy?”

_Please._

Eggsy knelt, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. Still proud, despite everything. Still defiant. Harry was torn between relief that Eggsy hadn’t been broken by what had happened to him, and terror that the other man’s stubbornness would lead them both down the road to disaster.

Harry looked up in time to catch Ackerman discreetly point at Eggsy and Kmiec nod her head in response. Ackerman looked satisfied, whatever it was about, and Harry could only hope that the silent communication was confirmation that they believed that Harry had indeed forced himself on Eggsy.

Harry felt nauseated just thinking about it. He glanced down at Eggsy, who hadn’t moved.

“Has he been fed?” he asked idly.

Ackerman moved to help himself to a bowl of soup as Kmiec discreetly exited the room. “Do you care, Sir Henry?” he enquired mildly.

“I don’t want him to pass out. I’m not quite done with him yet.” Harry forced himself to lean back in his chair. It wouldn’t do to seem too invested in Eggsy’s welfare.

“I’m starting to think you’re becoming rather fond of him.” Ackerman wandered back to the table, still smiling benevolently. “What do you think, Hannah?”

“Oh yes.” She was watching Eggsy intently, a hunter watching her prey. “He’s your first survivor, isn’t he, Dominic? The first one to last the twelve hours.”

Ackerman’s smile faded. “I hardly think it counts,” he said stiffly. “Without Sir Henry’s, ah, intervention, things would have been very different.”

Hannah Auld’s sceptical gaze transferred to Harry. “Quite,” she said. “His most _fortunate_ intervention.”

In that moment, all the hesitation, all the unease that had settled on Harry since waking abruptly lifted, and the world crystallised into perfect focus around the threat. There was no doubt at all in his mind now that she suspected him of not being quite all he seemed. He rose from the table, picked up his own half-eaten plate of pasta salad, and placed it on the floor in front of Eggsy.

“Eat,” he said curtly.

Eggsy looked at the plate, and then at Harry, and mutely shook his head.

Harry cuffed him around the head, pulling the blow at the last minute to lessen the impact. He didn’t have the luxury of drawing this out.

“I said, _eat_. Don’t make me tell you again.”

Eggsy gave him a mutinous scowl and started to reach down for the plate. Harry moved his leg to intercept the movement.

“ _Without_ using your hands.”

Someone sniggered. Harry ignored it, focused only on Eggsy.

_Just do it, please._

Eggsy took a shallow, shuddering breath and slowly, reluctantly, sank down onto all fours, the very picture of unwilling, resigned compliance.

"Make sure you clean the plate," Harry told him as Eggsy lowered his head to take an awkward bite at the salad.

Eggsy stiffened. What Harry could see of his face was red with humiliation and no doubt more than a little rage.

"I don't think we have to worry," Snell remarked to Ackerman. "Sir Henry has him in hand, as far as I can see."

It was an unexpected, yet welcome, intervention. Harry smiled tightly. "Indeed," he said cordially. "I believe there was some disturbance this morning, with Mr Woolford?"

Harry had hoped simply to draw attention away from Eggsy but, going by the expression on Ackerman's face, he'd opened another can of worms.

"I'm afraid Mr Woolford has not been ... entirely accepting of our activities," Ackerman said with evident reluctance.

"Which means he discovered the conscience he never knew he had."

Ackerman acknowledged Snell's contribution with a shrug. "It's unfortunate. Not unheard of, but unfortunate. Yes, Sir Henry; it seems Mr Woolford has had something of a crisis of conscience about last night.”

"I'm surprised he remembers anything _about_ last night." Harry settled himself back in his chair.

"He remembers enough," Snell drawled. "Came into breakfast spouting off about inhumanity and all kinds of other rot."

The door opened again, this time to admit Sir Anthony. The General glanced around the room, acknowledging them each in turn with a sharp nod, before his gaze fell to Eggsy on the floor.

"Missing the entertainment, am I?"

Snell snickered. "We were just talking about Woolford and that little show this morning."

"Revolting display." The General poured himself a glass of water and settled himself down opposite Harry. "Man's an idiot. Where's he gone, anyway?"

"Back to bed, if he has any sense."

Going back to bed sounded like a very good idea but it wasn't an option for Harry: he'd have to take Eggsy with him and then they'd expect him to make use of Eggsy again. Harry didn't think that either of them were up to a repeat performance just yet.

Instead, he leaned forward and flicked Eggsy on the ear.

"Stand up." Then, addressing Ackerman, he said, "I think I might take a stroll. The rain seems to have eased a little and I could do with some fresh air." He deliberately didn't look at Eggsy as the other man slowly got to his feet but in his peripheral vision he could see how pained the other man's movements were.

"We certainly have plenty of that on Fetheray." Ackerman didn't seem suspicious of Harry's sudden desire for exercise. "Please, go wherever you wish."

"Not near the cliffs, though," Snell said, smirking.

Ackerman frowned. "I'm sure Sir Henry will be _mindful_ of where he goes.” Turning back to Harry, he added, “Afternoon tea is at four, dinner is at seven. If you need anything at all, Sir Henry, don't hesitate to ask a member of my staff."

“Thank you. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

Harry tried not to move too quickly towards the door or look too relieved to be leaving a room that had become stifling. Eggsy stuck close to him, to Harry’s relief; evidently he still considered Harry the least worst of his options.

"Upstairs," Harry told him when the door to the dining room had closed behind them. The colour drained from Eggsy's face and Harry belatedly cursed his poor choice of words. "I need some paracetamol,” he explained. “And a coat, if we're going outside."

Eggsy nodded unhappily. He trailed up the stairs after Harry with obvious reluctance and, when they reached the suite, he hovered just inside the doorway, clearly unwilling to make any move towards the bedroom.

Harry didn't waste time trying to correct his mistaken assumptions; even if he had thought it might help, he couldn’t do so in front of the watching surveillance camera. He fetched the paracetamol the doctor had given him instead, took two himself and pressed another two on Eggsy, along with a glass of water. Eggsy initially went to refuse, until Harry shook his head sharply at him and indicated for him to take them.

"It will help."

Harry took a moment to discreetly scan Eggsy for bugs while the other man was putting on Harry's spare jacket. He was unsurprised to discover a small bug tucked underneath the collar of Eggsy's shirt: Kmiec, or maybe McLean, was taking no chances.

"Come along," he told Eggsy. "Some fresh air will put some colour in your cheeks."

Eggsy looked like he was on the verge of telling Harry where he could put his fresh air. To Harry's relief, he held his tongue.

Outside, it was a grey, miserable day. Although the rain had stopped, there was dampness in the air and it was much colder than it had been yesterday. The wind had dropped a little but every lull was punctuated with a wild gust that knocked the breath from his lungs. Harry had no particular goal in mind as they wandered down the road from the house; his overriding impulse was to put some distance between himself and Eggsy and anyone else, and for them to have the conversation he knew they had to have.

Harry stole a glance at Eggsy. The other man had his head down; his hands stuffed in the pockets of Harry's jacket, which was far too big for him. He looked thoroughly miserable. Hardly surprising, Harry thought; the last time he'd been out here he'd been running for his life.

Harry sighed, and reached inside his jacket to push the discreet button on his lapel pin.

"How's the head?"

Eggsy flinched as if Harry had raised a hand to him. "What?"

Harry gestured at his own head. "Do you have a headache? Are you feeling sick at all?"

Eggsy narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "You mean from when you bashed my head against a rock?"

It was Harry's turn to flinch. "I suppose so, yes," he admitted. "I didn't exactly have time to explain what was going on."

"Try now, then. I'm all ears."

Off to the right, further down the hillside, two of Ackerman's men were walking to a small motorised buggy. Neither looked in their direction but it was a reminder, all the same, that they were still easily observed, still surrounded. At least they could go temporarily unheard, thanks to Merlin's wizardry embedded in his lapel pin.

"I'm sorry for what happened at lunch," Harry began haltingly. "I was afraid that they were starting to suspect something." He stopped, unsure of how to go on.

"Think it's a bit late for that," Eggsy said, kicking at a loose stone in the road.

"Yes, I know."

"They're gonna expect you to kill me."

Harry sighed. It was another reminder that there was no point in trying to lie to Eggsy, or sugarcoat the truth. "Yes."

The light was fading already, even though it was barely mid-afternoon. Soon it would be dark and, while Harry had no idea what Ackerman had originally had planned for this evening, he had no doubts at all that he would be expected to dispose of Eggsy before daybreak. Letting Eggsy leave with Harry was almost certainly not up for negotiation. If it had just been Ackerman himself, and no others, Harry rather thought he might have had a chance to talk him into it, if he were able to convince Ackerman that Eggsy would never be in a position to threaten his business empire, but the presence of the others complicated everything. None of them would want to risk Eggsy leaving the island.

Once again, Harry inwardly cursed the loss of his connection to Kingsman. If there was any hope of backup, of Lancelot arriving, then he could hold out in the sure knowledge that the two of them could hold their own against Ackerman's security team, but without that guarantee he had to assume that he was on his own. He had to somehow get himself and Eggsy off the island with enough evidence to take down Ackerman and everyone else involved. Or contact Kingsman by another means, which was easier said than done.

"Just make it quick, yeah?" Eggsy said, dragging Harry back to the here and now. "Shoot me in the head or something. Don't let it drag out."

The wasn't much Harry could say to that. "If it comes to that, yes, I promise." He did allow himself to look at Eggsy then, needing that connection. "But let's not rush into things."

Eggsy, both to his surprise and relief, smiled; a strained, somewhat tremulous smile but a smile nonetheless. "Not what a gentleman does, yeah?"

"Believe me," Harry said dryly. "There are a number of people on this island I would not hesitate to shoot in the head. You are not amongst them."

"Because of my dad?"

_That_ was unexpected. "No." He wasn't sure when it had stopped being about Lee, and repaying the debt he owed the man, but it had. It was _Eggsy_ he wanted to get to safety, _Eggsy_ he wanted to release from this hellhole.

"I'm touched," Eggsy said with more than a hint of sarcasm. His face, which had regained a lot of its colour, abruptly paled again. "Are you gonna...?"

"I don't know," Harry said honestly. He knew exactly what Eggsy was asking. "I can't promise anything. They think I spared you to fuck you; if I seem to tire of you too quickly then I have no reason not to kill you."

Eggsy was silent for a minute or two and Harry wondered what thoughts were going through his head.

"All right," Eggsy said at last, very quietly. "But don't make me eat off the floor again, yeah? Not a dog."

They had reached a turn in the road, where the ground fell sharply towards the sea. From that vantage point, Harry could see all the way to the jetty they’d arrived to the day before. It felt like a lifetime ago, another existence that he had stepped out of, however temporarily.

“You got a plan for getting out of here or what?”

“Excellent question.” Harry narrowed his eyes as he scanned the buildings dotted around the jetty. A few ideas were starting to come together in his head and, while Harry wouldn’t quite describe the motley collection of thoughts as a _plan_ quite yet, he rather thought it had potential. “How _did_ you take down that drone, by the way?”

Eggsy shrugged. “Those things break easy. Lassoed it with my jacket.”

“Of course.”

They walked back towards the house in silence. When they were within a hundred yards of the first tower, Harry stopped.

"I'm afraid we must play our parts again now, Eggsy. I don’t expect you will enjoy it any more than I will, but I would ask you to please trust me. For now, at least.”

“You think I’ve got any other option?”

“No,” Harry said. “I don’t suppose you do.”

Eggsy eyed the lapel pin as Harry delicately tapped the button again to turn off the jamming signal. For a moment Harry thought he might say something but before Eggsy could open his mouth someone hailed them from the house and Harry turned round to see six of Ackerman’s security team running down the road towards them.

“Shit.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unexpected diversion - and Eggsy proves to be a more useful ally than Harry ever expected.

The temporary lull had long since passed and the weather had closed in once more on Fetheray. The storm was not as wild as it had been before but its angry gusts swept across the island with unrelenting fury, bringing with it sheets of ice-cold and stinging rain and sleet as daylight slowly bled away. There had been no time for the previous rainfall to drain away before the new deluge and the barren landscape now presented a new hazard in the form of large tracts of waterlogged peat bog. In the rapidly-fading light and with what paths there were turned to mud, it was difficult to identify where solid ground gave way to treacherous bog.

Harry had never been more grateful to be indoors, with a roof and four solid walls between himself and the elements. The comfortable chair was a bonus, as was the glass of brandy at his elbow. Eggsy sat on the floor at his feet, leaning a little against Harry's leg as he watched the big screen at the end of the viewing room. Harry took the opportunity, whilst no one was paying attention, to slip him one of the sandwiches from his own plate. 

The reason no one was paying any attention to Eggsy - or to Harry, for that matter - was right there on the screen, where the camera view was currently that of the head cam McLean was wearing as he and three of his men made their way through one of the island's shallow valleys. The men had been forced to abandon the quad bikes they had initially favoured when ground conditions became too bad. Now they were tracking their quarry on foot, and it was hard going if McLean's heavy breathing and muttered curses were anything to go by.

"What a pity we don't have a view from above," Margaret Connor remarked, breaking the silence that had hung over the viewing room since McLean and his men had left the quad bikes behind.

"The wind's too strong to put up a drone," Ackerman snapped. Harry thought he sounded very much like a man hanging onto his temper by the thinnest of threads. The genial mask the man wore was cracking a little more with every minute that passed.

"Not to worry," the General said. "Makes it more entertaining, doesn't it? Gives your men a chance to do things the old-fashioned way."

"I'm not a man who believes in revisiting the past." Ackerman took a sip of brandy. Harry noted the faint tremor in his hand. "Nor do I like ... inconveniences."

"I don't know why you ever invited the man in the first place," Hannah Auld said. For now at least, she seemed mostly uninterested in Harry and Eggsy, but Harry wasn't foolish enough to think that she wasn't still a threat.

Ackerman smiled thinly. "Believe me, my dear, it won't happen again."

On screen, McLean and his men changed direction, scrambling up a low rise to gain a vantage point over an undulating plateau. Up ahead, almost lost in the murk, a hunched figure was visible.

"There he is," Nicholas Snell said with satisfaction. "Not long now, eh?"

Harry took a sip of his brandy and discreetly checked his watch. The hunt had been going on for over an hour. Woolford was doing surprisingly well, for a man who had seemed so foolish and unprepared. 

"Are you planning to bring him back first, Dominic?"

Ackerman shook his head, not bothering to turn his attention from the screen. "No, Margaret. McLean has his orders. No last words. I'm afraid that Mr Woolford will meet with an unfortunate accident while out for a walk in the storm.”

"A rather fortunate accident, from our point of view,” Harry remarked.

"Exactly, Sir Henry." 

“Do you think he’s making for the boathouse?” Nagul Khan addressed it to Harry.

“I’d have thought so,” Harry said carelessly. “There’s no other way off the island, is there? And I would assume that Mr Woolford is thinking about making his escape.”

“He’d have done better going for the hangar.”

“I didn’t realise there was such a thing.”

“Ackerman has a helicopter; the hangar is built into the promontory behind the house.”

Years of experience prevented Harry from reacting visibly but all the training the world couldn’t prevent his heart rate from picking up at this revelation. “I had no idea.”

“Our host likes to keep it under wraps.” Khan gave Harry a conspiratorial wink. “He doesn’t like the sea; thinks _Titanic_ is a horror movie.”

Harry forced a smile. “It’s not exactly the weather for a flight, either.”

“Indeed, Sir Henry,” Ackerman interjected. “Even if Mr Woolford could find a pilot - which, I assure you, he won’t - the weather would make a flight impossible. Above 200 feet conditions are, I believe, quite treacherous. And Mr Woolford’s experience of flying is confined to a bi-annual holiday flight.”

A murmur of laughter went around the room. Harry joined in, but his mind was whirring at the possibilities this new information had opened up. None of the information Merlin had been able to gather had indicated a helicopter but if Ackerman had a clandestine pad then, if conditions improved and the wind dropped, as Melanie Curtis had promised it would, then they had a potential escape route.

For all the bravado, though, McLean and his men weren't catching Woolford as easily as might have been expected. It might have been that McLean and his men had been instructed to draw out the chase for the entertainment of the other guests but Harry was starting to think that there was rather more to Peter Woolford than he had hitherto thought. And, if the expression on Ackerman's face was anything to go by, he was rapidly reaching the same conclusion.

Harry's suspicions were confirmed less than five minutes later. Woolford dropped out of sight on screen and a ragged cheer went up around the room. One of McLean's men were sent forward to investigate the presumed-fallen target, only to disappear with a choked-off yell. They heard McLean curse over the link, as the man fired off three shots in the direction his man had disappeared. In his peripheral vision Harry saw Eggsy flinch and he stretched out a hand to touch the other man's shoulder as the sound of more gunshots echoed around the room.

"He's got a gun now," Margaret Connor said unnecessarily.

"And he's a good shot.” Another of McLean's men went down, this time to a bullet. 

“Indeed he is, Sir Henry.” Ackerman rose to his feet, his hands balled into fists, his face white with fury as he addressed his men. "Kill him, McLean!" he snarled. "Take him out, and let's find out what he really is."

"Are you suggesting he's not who he presented himself to be?"

"Of course he's fucking not!" Ackerman was clearly past caring that his mask of geniality had slipped. Margaret Connor blanched in the face of his fury but Ackerman had already turned away. Woolford was up and running again, a turn of speed that spoke of intense training and a keen physical fitness. In his wake, McLean was struggling to keep up: Ackerman's head of security was built for strength and not speed.

"He might make it, you know," Khan remarked idly.

"Won't do him any good if he does.” Snell said it with an air of profound aloofness but Harry noted that his hand was shaking badly when he reached for his glass again. "There's no boat there for him to steal. Unless he's a very good swimmer, he is going nowhere."

"He's not going for the boat," Hannah Auld said in her crisp, clear voice. "He's going for the satellite link, isn't that right, Dominic?"

_Of course_. It made sense. It made perfect sense, and that was why it had been part of Harry's plan, too. He'd noticed the VSAT dish behind one of the dock buildings during his walk with Eggsy earlier and immediately recognised it for what it was. There was no way that a man like Ackerman would cut himself off completely, and that communications dish - or, more specifically, the equipment it was connected to in the adjoining building - was the link between Fetheray and the outside world.  Woolford intended to raise the alarm.

McLean was jogging up a low rise, feet slipping on the wet heather underfoot; they heard his muffled cursing as he barked orders at his men, trying to manoeuvre them into position to cut Woolford off. It was hard to get a feel for what was happening with only one view of the scene, but McLean’s expletives told the story as well as any number of video feeds. 

“Just kill him, McLean!” Ackerman snapped, just as the man in front of McLean dropped like a stone with a bullet through his brain.

“Excellent shot,” Hannah Auld murmured. Ackerman shot her a malevolent look.

Eggsy shifted restlessly, and Harry reached out again to discreetly touch his shoulder again. This could hardly be a pleasant experience for Eggsy, reminding him - as it must - of his own frantic, terrified race for survival, and what he’d endured afterwards. 

“Fetch me another drink,” he told the other man. He spoke quietly, not wanting to draw attention if Eggsy refused. 

Eggsy turned his head but didn’t meet Harry’s eyes. He nodded once, sharply, and rose to his feet. Harry checked that Ackerman was still engrossed in watching the screen before he turned to address the General.

“Woolford’s sister; did you meet her yourself, Sir Anthony?”

“Met her once. Very pretty.” The General was too distracted to express surprise at Harry’s unusual question. 

“Was that on the same occasion our host met her?”

It was an educated case on Harry’s part but it paid off, as he had hoped it would.

“Oh yes.”

On screen McLean was heavy-breathing his way towards the jetty, but everyone’s attention was now focused on the feed from the cameras mounted on the buildings, which showed Woolford taking out three guards in quick succession with the kind of ruthless efficiency that easily betrayed his true identity. The only question remaining was which organisation he - and his sister, if that’s what she was - worked for, and how they’d constructed a cover strong enough to withstand Merlin’s investigations. Harry didn’t imagine that Merlin would take kindly to having the wool pulled over his eyes.

Another guard down. Woolford was at the door of the building now, and none of McLean’s men were near enough to stop him: once he was inside he could hold them off long enough to raise the alarm. Ackerman was beetroot red and practically vibrating with rage as he cursed McLean and Woolford in turn. In his peripheral vision, Harry saw Eggsy set a glass on the table next to him but his attention was riveted on the screen as Woolford shot off the padlock securing the door.

The camera zoomed in, centred on Woolford's face, so close that it seemed that Woolford was stood directly in front of them. The expression of intense concentration was one Harry had seen on his fellow agents' faces many times during shared missions, so familiar he could feel his own facial muscles shifting in sympathy. It took every ounce of his self-control to maintain the facade, to reach indolently for his glass of Delamain with barely a glance towards Eggsy, who had settled himself again at Harry's side, but he could not contain a small gasp as, clearly visible on the feed but unseen by Woolford, Emilia Kmiec dropped gracefully from the roof of the building. Too late, Woolford saw her, and he was still turning, gun raised, when Kmiec struck her single, deadly blow.

Eggsy made a choked-off sound, his hand clutching, perhaps instinctively, at Harry's ankle as Woolford collapsed in a fountain spray of blood from his severed carotid artery. Kmiec watched him dispassionately as he fell, before bending down to wipe her knife clean on his clothes.

"Well," Hannah Auld said into the silence that had fallen over the room. "That would seem to have disposed of that little problem, Dominic."

"Yes." Ackerman's smile was more like a grimace. "It is dealt with." Ackerman was, Harry thought, controlling himself remarkably well, since it was clear the man was still simmering with barely-contained anger.

Whichever way he looked at it, the incident - as he _must_ think about it - had both hindered and helped Harry. On the one hand, he now knew that there was an alternate way off the island, and Woolford's unmasking as an infiltrator had taken the heat off Harry, for a while at least. On the other, Ackerman's security would now be alert to the possibility of a guest attempting to contact the outside world. Harry very much doubted he would be able to get to the jetty on his own, let alone with Eggsy in tow. And he _still_ had no concrete evidence of Ackerman's activities.

"That was very entertaining," Khan remarked. "What else do you have planned for us tonight?" Smiling, he looked around the room, as if inviting them to share in the joke.

"Perhaps Sir Henry would allow us to make use of his ... winnings," Snell said, winking at Harry. "Since his little toy outwitted just about everybody last night."

Eggsy's fingers were digging into Harry's leg so hard they would probably leave bruises. Harry settled a hand on his shoulder, trying to convey something like reassurance.

"I'm afraid I haven't quite finished with him yet,” he said smoothly.

"Oh, don't be selfish, Sir Henry. Surely he's not _that_ good."

Harry felt sure his smile had a clearly-visible murderous edge to it. "He put me to considerable inconvenience. I'm afraid the debt must be repaid."

Ackerman laughed suddenly, a sharp-edged unpleasant laugh. "Well said, Sir Henry. You are indeed a man after my own heart." He turned to address the others. "Shall we adjourn for a while? I'm sure you would all like to refresh yourselves before dinner. If you would like to join me in the drawing room at half past seven for drinks..."

Harry was torn between being grateful for Ackerman’s unexpected intervention and nauseated by the implication, but the end result was a welcome one as the party rose from their seats. Conversation was desultory as they made their way back up to the house. No one seemed particularly distressed by Woolford's unpleasant end, except Eggsy, who still looked rather too pale for Harry's liking. Then again, he probably assumed Harry was going to make good on his implied threats with a repeat of the previous night's unpleasantness.

Eggsy's distress did not, however, prevent him making sublimely convincing sounds and choked-off pleas for mercy when Harry laid him out on the bed and beat the pillow next to him with his belt for a solid seven and a half minutes. Harry made a mental note to look into that, if by some miracle they made it off Fetheray; there was no good reason Eggsy should know how it felt to be whipped with a belt. Afterwards, Harry took him into the bathroom and set the shower running again, although he would have preferred a bath to soak his aching muscles, followed by a week or so of blessed unconsciousness.

"You better have a plan for getting us out of here,” Eggsy said without preamble. "Because I don't want to get my fucking throat slit, yeah?"

"On that, I suspect we're entirely in agreement." Harry sat down on the edge of the bath. He had no appetite for dinner, and not because of Woolford's death. Harry had seen enough sudden, violent death in his life for it to hold no particular horror for him but he’d had his fill of Ackerman and his guests.

“So what’s the plan?”

“The plan is that we wait until dark, and then we make for the helicopter hangar.” Harry rubbed his temples, frowning. His head hurt and he felt distinctly queasy.

Eggsy gave him a hard stare. “And you can fly a helicopter, can you?”

“Not exactly.” Harry hurried on before Eggsy could let fly with a sarcastic remark. “But Ackerman will have a pilot. Over dinner I’ll make some discreet enquiries and we’ll go from there.”

There was a short pause and then Eggsy said, “That’s a _shit_ plan.”

“Do you think you could do better?” Harry snapped. “What would you have us do?”

“You want to wait until tonight, yeah?” 

Harry nodded. 

Eggsy grimaced, running a hand distractedly. through his hair. “That’s fucking _stupid_. We should go _now_.” He glared when Harry opened his mouth to speak. “You think they won’t be watching tonight? We need to go now.”

The worst of it was that Eggsy was _right_. McLean’s men would be off-guard and off-balance right now, perhaps mourning the loss of their comrades and congratulating themselves for surviving.  Give them a few hours, though, and the secure perimeter would be reestablished and their chances of escape would fall dramatically. And, if Harry’s suspicions were correct, Ackerman would expect Harry to kill Eggsy tonight, if not as after-dinner entertainment then by pitting him as quarry in another diabolical hunt, with no opportunity for a miraculous escape this time.

_This is no time for personal feelings, Galahad._

Harry looked at his watch. They still had another hour before he was expected downstairs. “I need evidence," he said heavily. "Solid, incontrovertible evidence.”

“Of what? Of what that fucker’s doing?”

“Yes.” 

Eggsy smiled, the first genuine smile Harry had seen from him. “Might be able to help you with that.”

“And what does that mean?”

“While you was busy drinking that fancy shit-“

“Excellent cognac-“

“Like I _said_ , while you was busy, _I_ was asking questions.” Eggsy doesn’t let Harry get a word in edgeways. “And I picked up something.” He held up a small object, something that-

“A USB stick? Where did you get that?”

“Told you; picked it up.” Eggsy glared at Harry defiantly, as if daring Harry to make an argument out of it. 

_Minor criminality and wasted potential_. Harry rubbed his temples again. “And what use is this stick that you _picked up_?”

Eggsy told him, and Harry thought it was easily one of the most hare-brained plans he’d ever heard.

But then again, they were all out of options.


	9. Chapter 9

At precisely three minutes to seven, the peace of the evening was shattered by the cacophonous shrill of the smoke alarms. Almost at once, the house erupted into life, a medley of slamming doors and hurrying feet, shouted questions and urgent instructions. No one seemed to have a clue what was going on.

The chaos was, Harry thought as he cracked the door open an inch or so, all rather satisfying.

Seeing that the corridor was deserted, Harry quickly let himself out of the second-floor bedroom and made for the service stairs at the end of the corridor. He knew he didn't have much time before Ackerman's staff started looking for the non-existent fire: since there was no possibility of outside assistance in the event of emergency, there had to be some kind of fire-fighting procedure. He hurried down the stairs, keeping close to the wall and moving as quietly as he could, but his luck held and he made it down to the ground floor without encountering anyone.

He was now in an area he hadn't seen before, the staff area, consisting of the kitchens and various storage rooms and what seemed to be some kind of staff break room. Harry moved swiftly from room to room. He was reasonably sure the security team wouldn't shoot him out of hand if they found him but that didn't mean they wouldn't ask some awkward questions. Fortunately for them, they were conspicuous by their absence.

By four minutes past seven, Harry was outside the service door at the rear of Skirra House. On this side of the island, the house stood close enough to the sea that Harry could hear the waves crashing against the rocks far below but, half-blinded by the lights of the house, Harry could see little beyond the narrow gravel path he stood on. The wind had eased entirely but the rain seemed to have picked up its fury and, even partially screened by the house, Harry was getting soaked. He wasted no time in getting moving, sticking close to the house as much as he could even when the path ran out and he was forced to scramble over rock instead. By the time he rounded the corner of the house, his back was hurting again, reminding him that he wasn't exactly in peak physical condition.

This side of the house was dark and, as far as Harry could see, deserted. He picked up speed. It was already ten past seven; they were running out of time. Feet skidding on the sodden ground, Harry made it with seconds to spare, just in time to steady Eggsy as the other man swung down from the balcony above and nearly lost his footing on the uneven ground.

"Thanks," Eggsy said breathlessly.

"Is it done?" There would be time for pleasantries later, if by some miracle they survived.

"Yeah.” Eggsy sounded almost insulted that Harry was questioning his abilities.

"Well done,” Harry said sincerely. Up until that moment he hadn’t been sure that Eggsy would be able to carry out his part of their plan, but Eggsy had proved himself all over again. He really was a remarkable young man, Harry thought; Lee would have been proud of him.

"Wasn't easy."

"You can tell me about it later. Come on; we don't have much time."

It took longer than Harry would have liked to make their way around the house, but they had to keep out of sight and away from Ackerman's security team and the cameras. They were only halfway to their target when the smoke alarms abruptly fell silent.

"Shit," Harry muttered. It was only a matter of time now. “Last chance to change your mind, Eggsy. If we continue, it’s almost certain death-”

“-or we could go back now and pretend everything’s normal and wait for them to get around to killing us?”

Eggsy’s bluntness was bracing, at least. “Yes.”

In the poor light Harry thought he saw Eggsy grin. “If we’re gonna die let’s go down fighting.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Harry pulled out the kitchen knife he’d picked up on his way out of the house and kept moving, his mind smoothly changing mental gears now the decision was made, the miasma of ideas and possibilities and half-formed plans fading away to leave a single, clear trajectory.

The guard never knew what hit him, Harry’s knife doing its lethal work before the man had even registered Harry’s presence behind him. Harry kept his arm clamped around the man’s neck, choking off any abortive cries, until he was sure it was safe to let the body slump to the ground.  He took the man’s gun, as an insurance policy if nothing else. Right now stealth was their most important weapon.

"There's another two, down there,” Eggsy said urgently. He didn’t seem concerned that Harry had just killed a man. “What are we going to do about them?"

"Leave them to me. Go for the door. Do you know how to use a gun?"

"Yeah.” Eggsy didn’t elaborate.

Harry passed him the dead guard's gun. "Only use it if you have to."

Eggsy jerked a little at the touch of the cold metal but he didn't refuse and the hand that took the gun from Harry was steady. "You sure you don't need it?"

"No," Harry said shortly. Merlin always joked that Harry could kill anyone with anything, if he were minded to do so, and Harry had had quite enough of playing nicely on Fetheray. It was a catharsis of sorts, to lose himself in adrenaline and blood and the solid pain of fists connecting with muscle and bone. Two guards turned out to be three guards and something in Harry, something primal and rage-filled, crowed in jubilation at that, the beating of his heart punctuating every devastatingly accurate blow. The guards dropped to the ground without ever raising the alarm, and by the time he was done Eggsy had made his way to the viewing building and was adroitly opening the door with the keys he’d lifted from Melanie Curtis during the evacuation of Skirra House.

Harry followed, having taken another gun from one of the fallen guards. He debated standing guard at the entrance, but there was more chance of him being seen and, anyway, he had no idea what Eggsy might encounter inside the building. He darted inside instead, to find that Eggsy was already in the viewing room itself, scanning it for threats with impressive poise. Eggsy acknowledged Harry with a glance, before heading for the back of the room, where Harry had noticed Melanie hovering during the hunts.

“Over here, it’s where all the camera feeds come in, all the telemetry, everything. She told me the servers are down below but we can get whatever we want from here.”

Harry locked the door behind him, and slid its two bolts across for good measure. The door wouldn’t hold Ackerman’s men for long but it would buy them some time. “I suppose I should congratulate you for getting so much information out of her.”

Eggsy shrugged. “Didn’t see me as a threat, did she?”

“I suspect a number of people have made that mistake,” Harry said dryly.

Harry was relieved to discover that Ackerman had relied primarily on external security to keep his secrets, and what security there was on the system was easily circumvented. It didn’t take long for Harry to realise that Ackerman, or perhaps Melanie herself, was obsessive when it came to cataloguing Ackerman’s nefarious activities. He had no time to go through each folder but Harry didn’t need to: there were years of files stored in Ackerman’s archives. Potential victims, actual victims, potential invitees, actual invitees: there were files on all of them and Harry guessed that if he looked hard enough he’d find a folder with his cover name too.

“Fuck,” Eggsy breathed, peering at the screen. “How long has that sick fuck been doing this?”

“Too long.” They couldn’t possibly copy all of this information; there was simply too much of it. Harry started copying a selection of files instead: lists of names, videos, what looked like surveillance photographs.

“Work faster,” Eggsy said warningly. “It’s twenty-five past.”

“See if you can activate the cameras.” Harry wished he’d thought of it before. “We can at least get an idea of what they’re doing out there.”

Eggsy went at once. Harry clicked through folder after folder, grimacing at some of the names. It seemed Ackerman had no shortage of wealthy, powerful, and well-connected guests on Fetheray, and if nothing else he now knew why Scotland Yard and the intelligence agencies had been so reluctant to investigate the man. National scandal didn’t begin to cover it.

“You know you said we'd go back the way we came?” Eggsy said urgently.

"Yes?"

“Yeah, I don't think that's a good idea."

Harry dragged his attention away from the monitor and immediately realised what Eggsy meant. The main viewing panel showed the view outside Skirra House, and what looked like fifteen or sixteen heavily armed men moving towards the building they were in, weapons drawn.

"I think we've overstayed our welcome, Eggsy."

"Think you're right. What now?"

Harry removed the USB stick and tucked it safely away. He had as much evidence now as he was ever going to get on Ackerman's activities. Quickly, methodically, he started disconnecting cables, twisting the connectors so it would be difficult to reconnect them all. It wasn’t a permanent solution but denying Ackerman and his men the use of the sophisticated surveillance system might buy them a little time. ”Downstairs."

Eggsy paled. "You mean..."

"Yes. Come on." There wasn't time to coddle Eggsy, to provide meaningless words of comfort. "Once we’re outside, we'll work our way back round, try and confuse them. Hopefully they'll assume wrongly."

Eggsy followed him downstairs with a distinct lack of enthusiasm, but he picked up his pace as a loud crashing sound reverberated down the stairwell. Ackerman's men were trying to break down the exterior door.

"Determined, aren't they?" Harry remarked as he pushed open the door at the bottom of the stairs, half-expecting a challenge. But the lower level was deserted, every piece of equipment still in its place. Harry took the opportunity to collect more ammunition, and a couple of waterproof jackets for the pair of them. He'd hoped for something like a radio, so he could tune into their frequency, but he couldn't see anything obvious and there was no time to go rifling through cupboards. Eggsy, despite his earlier hesitance, had got the memo, and he was opening the door to the holding room where he and Ackerman's other victims had been held. A quick press of a second switch set the outer door to open.

Harry pulled on his jacket as he flicked off the lights on the lower level. He half-regretted doing so, because he could immediately see how heavily the rain was falling as the shutter door rumbled open. Seemingly no one had thought to cut the power to the building, which was either panicked sloppiness on their part, or Harry and Eggsy were about to walk into a trap.

Eggsy turned to him, a crooked smile on his lips. "Nice weather for it."

"If you like that sort of thing." There was another crash from upstairs, louder this time. Harry rather thought that Ackerman's men had broken through the door.

"Thought this was the kind of thing toffs liked."

"I've always found it somewhat overrated." Harry moved forward, scanning from side to side for any sign of a threat. The atrocious weather was both a menace and a boon: the poor visibility that hampered his own ability to spot Ackerman's men before they saw him would also be hampering them, and the signs of their passing would quickly be obliterated in the rain and the mud.

Eggsy stuck close as Harry cautiously edged out of the building but Harry thought the other man was breathing a little more rapidly than the situation demanded. Hardly surprising, with all the memories this must be dredging up. Harry kept forgetting that Eggsy wasn’t a trained agent, didn’t have years of training and a certain amount of desensitisation to help him deal with the situation he was in.

“Still time to go for that fucking helicopter,” Eggsy muttered as Harry halted briefly.

Harry shook his head. “That’s what they’ll expect us to do. Ackerman will assume it will be the first thing I think of. And besides, we have no idea where to find a pilot and I’ve only ever flown a helicopter once.”

“Oh, look at you, Sir Henry.”

He hear Eggsy’s teeth chattering. Instinctively Harry put a hand on his arm; Eggsy, to his surprise, did not pull away. “I think you may as well call me Harry,” he said. There was no sign of movement around them, no indication that they were under observation. It was time to go, time to count down what very well might be the final minutes of their lives. “In the circumstances. Let’s go, shall we?”

There was no way they could run across the boggy ground; even walking proved to be difficult as their feet sank deep into the treacherous ooze with every step. The only comfort was that it would be just as difficult for Ackerman’s men to make progress, and with every step they were putting distance between themselves and their pursuers.

It wasn’t quite far enough. The explosion, when it came, sent them both stumbling, and Harry had to catch himself from falling face-first in the peat. Eggsy swore colourfully as he fell to all fours next to him.

Harry risked a quick glance behind them. The weather blotted out the details but even the darkness and torrential rain couldn’t hide the twisting pillar of flame bursting from the debris of Skirra House.

“That should keep them busy for a while.” Harry brushed himself down and absentmindedly reached down to pull Eggsy to his feet.

“How the fuck did you do that?”

Harry looked around again. There was something nagging at him, something that didn’t feel quite right. “It’s very important, Eggsy, “ he said absently, “that when investigating a gas leak you don’t turn on a light.”

Eggsy snorted in amusement. “Don’t think we’ll get another invite.”

“I doubt Mr Ackerman has much of a house left to invite us to. Come on, we should keep moving.”

Harry never heard the shot fired, nor did he feel pain at first. The blow to his shoulder felt like a hard shove, and it was only after he tumbled to his knees, right arm suddenly limp and useless and unaccountably wrong, that he realised what had happened. Harry clutched at his shoulder with his left hand and felt the warm stickiness of blood.

“Harry,” Eggsy said breathlessly, crouching down at his side. “Harry, what’s wrong?”

“Go,” Harry told him. “I’ll hold them off. Go.” Every word sparked off a fresh ripple of agony in his shoulder.

“Fuck that,” Eggsy said roughly. He got an arm around Harry’s waist and dragged Harry up, somehow holding onto him when Harry’s knees buckled. “Sorry, Harry. I can’t leave you here.”

“This is … ridiculous,” Harry said through gritted teeth. “You- you have to go. Take the … stick.”

“Not without you,” Eggsy said stubbornly.

“You’ll … get us both … killed.” Harry managed a few stumbling steps. It had been a few years since he’d last taken a bullet and he didn’t remember it being quite this painful.

“We’re not dead yet.”

_Yet_. It was ridiculous; they were moving far too slowly.  Harry had lost all sense of time and distance. The pain dulled, no longer as intense as it had been. Harry suspected that wasn’t a good sign. He couldn’t feel much of anything. Even the rain on his face didn’t feel as sharp and as cold as he thought it should.

“Harry!” Eggsy said frantically. Harry wanted to reassure him, tell him not to worry, but the words wouldn’t come.

_I’m going to die here_ , he thought detachedly. He was going to breathe his last in the rain and wind and cold of this place. Now it came to it, Harry found he didn’t mind at all. He was so terribly, terribly tired, and he could feel death calling to him, inviting him to step gently over the threshold into welcome oblivion. He was dimly aware of the sensation of falling, of Eggsy’s voice, and he felt only a profound sadness, selfish as it was, that he had not had more time with the other man. Eggsy’s hand, warm and strong, clasped his, and then he was gone and Harry was alone.

The rain continued to fall. With every weak, thready beat of his heart, a little more of Harry’s lifeblood ebbed away. He wondered how long it would be before the other knights gathered for the traditional toast. It would take them a while to confirm his death, after all. Knowing his luck, Arthur would dig out some chinless wonder to replace him.

Someone took hold of his hand, a familiar touch that couldn’t be. Harry opened his mouth to say something but he simply didn’t have the breath for it. He was half-lifted, half-dragged, hands pulling and tugging at his clothes, every touch somehow anchoring him and holding him back from the abyss.

“Fucking _live_ , Harry,” Eggsy said urgently, very close to his ear. Something sharp scraped across Harry’s left hand. He could smell a heady mixture of petrol fumes, blood, and vomit.

He was in a vehicle of some kind, a car. A car that was moving erratically enough for Harry to be thrown around, helpless to brace himself. One particularly violent jolt knocked his head against the side of the car and he blacked out.

Some time later he came back to himself, the thin cords that tethered him to life somehow holding fast. Harry could hear the cries of the seagulls overhead and the crash of waves against the shore. By force of will alone he managed to open his eyes.

He was lying on a small strip of beach, dumped as carelessly as any other piece of debris abandoned to the ravages of the waves. There was no sign of a vehicle. Not three feet away, Eggsy knelt on the sand, slumped in defeat, the muzzle of Ackerman’s gun pressed against his head. One of Ackerman’s security men was standing to the side of them, his gun held negligently in one hand. The torch he held in the other was the only illumination for this ghastly scene.

“There you are, Sir Henry,” Ackerman said mockingly. “Or whatever your real name is. I thought for a moment we’d lost you. And that wouldn’t do. I want you to watch.”

Harry didn’t need to ask what he was supposed to be watching. After everything, Ackerman was going to kill Eggsy in front of him and then he was going to kill him. He’d completely and utterly failed in his mission. He couldn’t move a muscle, couldn’t even make a sound.

“Ah, nothing to say?” Ackerman tapped the muzzle of the gun against Eggsy’s forehead. “That’s a shame. I thought you might want to apologise for destroying my house, killing my guests, and causing me a considerable amount of inconvenience.”

“Yeah, you’d know all about killing people,” Eggsy said angrily.

Another tap, harder this time. “What an ill-mannered little yob you are.” Ackerman’s words were laced with thinly-veiled contempt. “But you’ll get what’s coming to you.”

“Fucking get on with it then,” Eggsy said defiantly. “How long does it take to kill someone?”

Ackerman laughed nastily. In the torchlight, his face seemed gruesomely contorted, a rictus grin. “Oh, I’m not going to kill you. Not yet, anyway.” He traced the line of Eggsy’s cheekbone with the muzzle of his gun, snickering as Eggsy flinched. “I don’t usually … partake, but I can make exceptions. And when I’m done, you’re going to run for me again. I want Sir Henry here to die knowing he couldn’t save you.” The gun brushed Eggsy’s lips. “This time, no one is coming to save you.” He glanced slyly at Harry, the unspoken message clear.

_He’s going to suffer for what you did._

“Fuck you,” Eggsy snarled. Brave to the end, but Harry could hear the fear and despair in his voice.

Ackerman threw back his head and laughed, and then somehow kept falling backwards, the laugh turning to a gurgle and a choked-off gasp as his legs folded and the gun fell to the ground. The guard hadn’t even begun to react to the grotesque collapse when he too dropped to the ground, the torch falling from his lifeless hand. Something must have broken, because its light was abruptly extinguished.

And then it was very, very quiet.

Something, or someone, touched Harry’s face. He tried to say something but all that came out was a pained wheeze. He frowned against the pressure around his eyes before he belatedly recognised what had been placed over them.

A familiar face loomed into view above him, rendered pale and unearthly by the night vision glasses.

“Sorry I’m late, Galahad” Lancelot said gravely. “Weather, you know.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back-up has arrived, but Harry and Eggsy have a way to go before they can escape

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An OC expresses some fairly horrible sentiments in this chapter but since intense classism underpins a lot of what's going on in this AU (and canon!) I think it fits both the character and the story overall.

Harry thought he might have passed out again, because the next time he opened his eyes he was lying in a small hollow between two rocks, his head pillowed on something soft. Lancelot was crouched down next to him, a familiar-looking syringe in his hand.

“Sorry about this, Galahad,” he drawled. “Needs must.”

“One of Merlin’s specials, I assume,” Harry croaked.

“Oh yes. Nothing but the best.”

He could make out Eggsy hovering behind Lancelot, holding his Kingsman torch so Lancelot had a good view of where he was sticking the needle - although Harry knew the other man could have done it blindfolded if he needed to. It was one of those necessary skills a Kingsman picked up early on in his training.

“This is Eggsy, by the way,” he said, feeling rather foolish.

“Yes, I know. We met when he tried to knock my brains out with a rock.”

“I didn’t know you was on our side,” Eggsy said truculently. “Still don’t. What you giving him?”

“Something to keep him alive.” Lancelot tugged Harry’s sleeve back down, covering the injection site. “Something to stop the bleeding and take away the pain.”

_And the rest_ , Harry added mentally. He could feel the concoction racing through his veins, stirring his sluggish heartbeat and making his breathing a little easier. It wasn’t a cure and it wouldn’t last forever but it might be enough to get him on his feet and keep him conscious for a while longer.

“Leave me the kit,” he said.

Lancelot handed over the little pouch without a word. Harry glanced at Eggsy again, but it was impossible to tell what the other man was thinking. He must, Harry thought, have a hundred questions, but he wasn’t saying anything. Possibly he was still in shock from his near-death experience and Lancelot's unexpected arrival.

“What’s the plan to get out of here?” he asked.

Lancelot took the torch back from Eggsy. “I came by boat, but it’s moored offshore and I’m not sure you’re quite up to swimming, Galahad.”

“His name’s Harry,” Eggsy said, more loudly than was strictly necessary. “Unless it ain’t. Harry?”

“That is my name,” Harry said, somewhat unwillingly. “Galahad’s my codename.”

Eggsy was silent for a moment. Harry could practically hear the cogs grinding as he processed that information. “So you’re like a spy?”

“Something like that, yes.” Harry didn’t attempt to explain further: it wasn’t the time or the place and he needed to get things moving while he was still capable of it. “Lancelot, where are we in relation to the rest of the island? Are you in contact with Merlin?”

“Not since I came ashore.” Lancelot clicked off the torch.

Harry had guessed that would be the case. Every agent had their own style, their own way of doing things. More than one Arthur had, over the years, tried and failed to bring any kind of orthodoxy to the organisation, and James wasn’t the only one who declined any kind of intrusion from HQ when on a mission. He’d always said he didn’t want Merlin perching on his shoulder while he was trying not to get shot and Harry had always sympathised with that point of view to some extent, but right now Harry would have gladly donated a kidney to hear Merlin’s voice in his ear.

“Well,” he said with a confidence he didn’t feel. “The important thing is that we get the information we’ve collected out. That has to be the priority. Eggsy, you will go with Lancelot and take the USB stick with you.”

Despite the lack of light, Harry could see Eggsy shaking his head. “Not leaving you, Harry.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Harry said sharply. Merlin’s magic had him at least partly back in the land of the living, but he would only slow them down in his current condition. “Lancelot, do you think you can make it back to your boat?”

The other agent hesitated but it was a hesitation so brief that most people would have missed it. “Not with you in tow.”

That settled it as far as Harry was concerned. The importance of teamwork was drilled into them all during the training, but so too was another, equally valuable lesson: the mission came first. They simply couldn’t afford not to get the evidence out.

“We are not fucking leaving him here,” Eggsy said, his voice rising. “Ackerman’s dead, yeah? It’s over.”

Harry could tell that Lancelot was about ten seconds from knocking Eggsy out cold and taking the USB stick from his unconscious body. “No, Eggsy,” he said firmly. “I’m afraid it’s not that simple. Ackerman may be dead, but his organisation is not. We need to get the information out, so we can dismantle the entire operation. Would you want the others who were kidnapped with you to have died in vain?”

It was a cheap shot, and Harry wasn’t proud of himself for using it. Into the sudden silence, Lancelot said:

“How’s your aim, Galahad?”

Harry instantly divined what the other man had in mind. “Good enough for the job.”

Lancelot nodded. “Help me with him,” he directed Eggsy.

For once Eggsy didn’t argue, however much he must have wanted to. Between the two of them, they hauled Harry up the short path to the top of the cliff in remarkably short order. The drugs didn’t entirely mask the agonising pain every movement caused but Harry had suffered worse. His heart was pounding, though, by the time they settled him into a sitting position against a low mound, and he felt light-headed and nauseated, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was making sure Eggsy and Lancelot got off the island safely with the evidence they needed to dismantle Ackerman’s organisation and take down a few of the names in Ackerman’s file. Harry was only sorry he wouldn’t be around to see some of them go down.

“Good job you picked this bit of coast,” Lancelot observed laconically. “I’d hate to have to carry you up a real cliff.”

Harry could hear the strain in his voice, the unspoken distress at leaving Harry behind. But that, in the end, was part of being a Kingsman agent. There was no room for sentiment in their line of work, nor much time for mourning. “It’s good exercise for you.”

“Here,” Lancelot said, proffering one of his spare pistols. Harry took it, slightly awkwardly with his left hand. Kingsman agents were taught to shoot with either hand, but it took Harry a few moments to find a comfortable position; his right arm was numb and useless.

“We are not fucking leaving him,” Eggsy said, but the protest was more half-hearted, less passionate than previously. He was coming around to the idea, however reluctantly.

“Just go, Eggsy,” Harry said tiredly. “Lancelot will look after you. I’ll be fine.”

They both knew it was a lie, but it seemed that Eggsy was willing to allow him some dignity, because the other man hesitated briefly and then reached down and clasped his hand gently on Harry’s uninjured shoulder before moving to stand with Lancelot.

Lancelot leaned down a final time to give Harry his night vision glasses. “I’ll get him to safety,” he murmured against Harry’s ear, quiet enough that Eggsy wouldn’t be able to hear.

“Mind that you do.”

Harry closed his eyes, not wanting to watch Eggsy walk away. By the time he opened them again, he was alone. But Lancelot and Eggsy were not, he quickly realised, out of sight. He’d lost his bearings when he’d passed out, and he hadn’t realised how close to the jetty they were. His current elevated perch gave him an almost perfect view of the jetty and the surrounding buildings. The night vision glasses also gave him an almost perfect view of Lancelot and Eggsy as they cautiously made their way down the hill.

It was difficult to judge the passage of time but Harry judged it to be ten minutes or so when he spotted two of Ackerman's security team making their way along the cliff. They had not noticed Harry, nor were they being at all cautious, and he took them both out before they even knew what was happening. The bodies tumbled over the edge of the cliff to the rocks below. Harry turned his attention back to the jetty, and the route Lancelot and Eggsy had taken.

Somewhere in the vicinity of the jetty, a tiny light flared and died. Harry frowned, trying to make out what was happening. He blinked, once, and almost immediately had to rip the glasses from his head as the dock was flooded with light. There was no attempt at subterfuge and Harry had no need of binoculars to see what was happening: someone had turned on the floodlights mounted on the buildings to illuminate the men running to and fro between the buildings, carrying crates to the jetty and stacking them in neat lines. Harry didn’t need binoculars to recognise the bulk of McLean in the middle of it all, barking orders at his men. Whether they knew Ackerman was dead or not, this was plainly an emergency evacuation.

The question of how this evacuation was to be effected was answered within a few minutes. A couple of men ran to the end of the jetty and waited expectantly, peering into the darkness beyond the circle of floodlights. The cold north-easterly wind was whipping up spray from the waves that crashed against the jetty and Harry imagined that the men were probably cursing every deity under the sun right now.

Out of the gloom a boat appeared: Harry recognised Ackerman’s yacht from the file Merlin had prepared. Its crew appeared to be having difficulty manoeuvring it in the heavy seas and on the first attempt they ran it heavily into the side of the jetty, hard enough to make one of the men waiting lose his balance. They fared better on the second attempt, and the waiting men hurried to secure the lines as soon as it was alongside. A gangplank was lowered, and the men began to load the crates. Harry didn’t think they were bothering to destroy evidence. A man like McLean would look to his own interests, in the end.

Harry rubbed absently at his cheek. The nausea had mostly passed but he still felt light-headed. It was frustrating to no longer be able to see Lancelot and Eggsy, but he trusted Lancelot to have thought through a plan. Probably a hare-brained plan, he acknowledged; James had a tendency towards the overly-complicated. But Eggsy had already proved to have a cool and inventive head on him, and a powerful desire to survive. Between them, they could come up with something.

So involved was Harry in thinking about how the others were going to get off the island that he completely missed the faint clicks and soft footsteps behind him, and it was only when the muzzle of a gun pressed insistently against the back of his head that he realised he was no longer alone.

“Drop the gun, Sir Henry,” Hannah Auld said. There was no mistaking those cold, precise tones, and no room for argument. Even in peak physical condition Harry would have hesitated to take her on, knowing what a good shot she was and how calm she was under pressure. Harry carefully laid his pistol on the ground, cursing his own carelessness in letting her sneak up on him. He slipped the night glasses back on as she walked around him, turning his head to block the glare from the dock.

She had not, he saw, escaped entirely unscathed from the ruins of Skirra House. There was a cut across her cheek and another on her neck, just above the tear in her blouse. But the hands that held the shotgun were steady and she moved without any sign of pain or discomfort as she took a step back from him, putting herself out of range of any lunge he might make towards her.

“I didn’t think to see you again, Sir Henry,” she said conversationally.

“I could say the same,” Harry responded. He shifted to a more comfortable position, trying and failing to stifle his groan of pain the movement caused.

“You’ll have to try harder than that to kill me,” she said icily. “I don’t think I can say the same for you, given your current condition.”

“Your friend Ackerman tried and failed.”

He saw the small turn of her head, the moment of contemplation. He knew the bodies would still be somewhere down on the beach, but he had no idea whether Lancelot had bothered to move them or whether she could even see them. Not, he thought, that it made much difference.

“Where’s the boy?” she asked abruptly.

“I don’t know.” That, at least, had the ring of truth. “I told him to go.”

She stared at him for a moment. ‘I suppose it doesn’t matter,” she said eventually. “He’ll be dead by dawn. As will you.”

“It’s been tried before,” Harry said with feeling.

“I can imagine.” She brought the shotgun up, lining up on his head. “I’m almost sorry to kill you. There’s no sport in shooting a wounded creature.”

Harry hadn’t intended to let her goad him, but the description stung. “Is that what this is? _Sport_ is a strange way of describing cold-blooded murder.”

He saw her lip curl. “I thought you might understand the thrill of the chase, Sir Henry. Not that that’s your real name, of course, but I think it’s close enough in the circumstances. Blood tells, I always say.”

“I don’t think we have much in common.”

“You might be surprised. Anyway, I thought you might have the stomach for the game, but clearly I was wrong.”

“Wrong about many things, but I think I understand.” Harry suspected he didn’t have much to lose by going out on a limb at this point, and the longer he kept her talking the more chance there was for Lancelot and Eggsy to escape. “It’s the power of life and death for you, isn’t it? Taking the scum off the streets, as the tabloids would no doubt phrase it. What could be better entertainment for someone who has given her life to the pursuit of justice? In years past they would have called you a hanging judge.”

His gamble paid off, as he had hoped it might. Ackerman had once spoken of their activities in much the same way and Harry had banked on the sentiment not being entirely the man’s own. “It was a public service, what we did here,” she said with satisfaction. He noted that the grip she had on the shotgun slackened a little. “Not one of them had any value to society. Thieves and thugs, not an honest bone in their bodies. They deserved everything they got.”

“And you, of course, were the best person to make that decision.” She wasn’t looking at him, oblivious to Harry fumbling with the kit Lancelot had left him.

“Why not? I’ve spent my life listening to sob stories, Sir Henry. Broken homes, tragic childhoods, addictions and poor decisions, I’ve heard it all in my courtroom. And none of them, none, mean a thing. Worthless lives, the lot of them. All we did here on Fetheray was give the dregs of society a little purpose.”

Ackerman had been monstrous, but there was something about the cold, clinical way she delivered this pronouncement that made it truly diabolical. Ackerman had provided the funding and the organisation, but Harry had no doubt now that it was the razor-sharp mind of Dame Hannah Auld DCVO that had set the horror show of Fetheray in motion. “You sat in judgement on them.”

“I consider it a calling,” she said gravely, as if she were discussing some noble duty rather than systematic murder carried out for nothing more than entertainment. “True justice, not a six-month slap on the wrist that has them back out on the streets in no time.”

“How many?” Harry asked. “How many have been brought to Fetheray?”

The barrel of the shotgun dipped as she considered the answer and that was all the opening Harry needed. He lunged towards her with the last of his fading strength, bringing his arm forward with as much strength as he could muster, driving the needle of the syringe through the fabric of her trousers and into her leg. It auto-injected as she yelped and stumbled backwards, the gun swinging wildly. There was no point trying to get out of her line of fire: Harry couldn’t move fast enough and there was no cover out here on the cliff edge. It didn’t matter anyway, because Merlin’s concoctions always worked quickly. Harry counted three seconds before Hannah Auld’s legs folded from under her and she fell heavily to the ground, her death rattle seeming to echo across the cliff top.

Breathing heavily, Harry picked up his gun and scanned the area, cursing the blurriness that was creeping into the edges of his vision. He’d counted on her not having back up beyond the two guards he'd already taken out and, as far as he could tell, he was alone. He could see the distant outline of a quad bike, further along the cliff, and he debated and immediately discarded the idea of trying to get to it. It was simply too far away and he was in no state to go anywhere; he’d used up most of his additional time.

Turning his attention back to the jetty, Harry quickly spotted Lancelot, now working his way towards the VSAT hut. He frowned: Eggsy was nowhere in sight. None of the guards milling around the jetty had noticed Lancelot. The man stuck close to the shadows, making sure to stay out of their eye lines, knowing as well as Harry did how readily the human eye picks up movement.

Harry’s heart seemed to stutter as he caught sight of the movement on the roof of the building, caught up in a wave of déjà vu. He didn’t need the high-definition cameras Ackerman had used to identify the figure that swung gracefully to land behind Lancelot or see the wickedly lethal knife in Emilia Kmiec’s hand: it was Woolford’s death all over again. Harry’s mouth opened instinctively in a futile shout of warning but before he could make a sound he saw Eggsy step out from his hiding place behind the hut and brought something that looked like an equipment panel cover or sheeting down over Kmiec’s head. She dropped like a stone, the knife falling from her hand.

A choking, breathless laugh broke from Harry’s mouth. He watched as Eggsy fell into step behind Lancelot, the two of them threading their way between the buildings and disappearing from view once more. The pain was starting to seep back in, overwhelming the temporary defences Merlin’s concoction had provided. Harry was finding it hard to breath; it was becoming more and more of an effort to drag air into his lungs. He managed to shift his position one last time, easing a little of the pressure on his ribs, and looked up to see what looked like a large dark bird swooping in from the sea, fast and low.

Harry blinked, trying to focus eyes that wanted to close. It was too large for a bird, the movements all wrong. And there was noise too, even louder than the sluggish beat of his heart, and a rush of air that stirred up the dirt and finally forced him to close his eyes.

Hands seized hold of his arms, fumbling for his pulse. Harry tried to lift the pistol, but his hand wouldn’t work. He tried to speak but all that came out was a faint sound.

“…just a scratch in your hand,” he heard.

It didn’t feel like a scratch. It felt like someone cutting into the back of his hand, deep down to the bone. A heartbeat later there was the distinct sensation that someone had just poured liquid fire into his veins but whatever it was worked – Harry felt the pain recede again and he knew he’d been walked back from the brink of death for a second time.

“How does that feel?”

Harry opened his eyes and blinked up at Percival and, behind him, the compact bulk of a Kingsman helicopter, one of the new types Merlin had been working on when he left for Fetheray, based on the MH-6 used by American Special Forces and modified for Kingsman’s purposes. “Glad to see you,” he croaked. “What are you doing here?”

“Merlin felt you might need a hand,” Percival said, checking Harry for wounds with the ease of long practice. “I assume Lancelot is around here somewhere?”

Right on cue, the first devastating explosion tore away the upper deck of Ackerman’s yacht, sending men and debris spiralling into the air in a roaring fireball of destruction. Those men who had survived scrambled for the safety of land, only for a second powerful explosion to send what remained of the jetty tumbling into the sea. In less than a minute, what remained of the yacht slid slowly beneath the waves next to the ruins of the jetty and what remained of McLean’s forces were frantically trying to regroup by the buildings. Harry didn’t rate their chances particularly highly.

“Well,” Percival said after a brief, contemplative pause. “I’m tempted to leave him to it. He seems to be enjoying himself.”

“Don’t hold back on my behalf,” Harry managed.

Percival shook his head. “I think the sooner we get you to medical the better, Galahad.”

Harry would have argued but Percival stuck another needle in his hand and this time Harry very quickly passed out.


	11. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His mission complete, Harry is back at Kingsman HQ

Harry put the final finishing touches to his tie and regarded his image in the mirror with some satisfaction. If he was going to be entirely honest with himself, he was still a little too pale, a little lacking in muscle mass after going so long without physical exertion, but overall he thought he looked like himself again. He was looking forward to going home, sleeping in his own bed. He’d spent too much time in hospital to care much for it.

Someone knocked at the door. Merlin, of course.

“How are you feeling?” the other man asked.

“Much better.”

Merlin gave him a thoughtful once-over. “Arthur wants to see you,” he said, almost apologetically.

“I’d guessed he might.” Then, because he’d only seen Merlin a few times since he’d regained consciousness and hadn’t been able to get around to the question he was desperate to ask, Harry added:

“Am I permitted a briefing, in advance of this meeting?”

Merlin eyed him speculatively. “Of course. Your mission was a success, Galahad. After you were evacuated, and we’d made a sweep of the island, Lancelot alerted the relevant authorities. Dominic Ackerman’s operation has been taken down, and a number of high-profile individuals have been arrested after we presented the evidence you gathered. The media are all over it, minus our involvement, of course. All in all, a good job. There was a lot more to it than we first thought.”

“Have we been able to discover how Ackerman first came to set up his operation? Or how the late judge became involved?”

Merlin shook his head. “Lancelot’s working on it - he’s had to go to South America on another mission, but he’ll pick it up again when he gets back. We had nothing on Hannah Auld prior to this and even now we’re chasing shadows. It’s all very-” He broke off as an alert sounded on his tablet. He frowned at whatever was on the screen. “Damn, I thought we really had something there.”

“Problem?”

“Just something new we’re developing down in the labs.” Merlin set the tablet aside. “You don’t need to worry about tying up loose ends. We’ve handled the clean-up on Fetheray. There was quite a body count on that island.”

“Not all attributable to me,” Harry pointed out.

“No one said it was. But we don’t want anyone poking around, just in case. As far as the locals are concerned, there’s been a chemical leak and the island’s sealed off. Toxic. Unfit for human habitation.”

“Did any of the other guests survive?”

Merlin consulted his tablet. “Margaret Connor.”

“That’s it?”

“It seems an argument broke out after the house was blown up. A bit of paranoia set in.” Merlin smiled grimly. “Poetic justice, eh?” He didn’t need to spell out what had happened after Harry and Eggsy had made their escape: those who had survived the explosion had turned on each other.

“The politician survived, of course,” Harry said wryly. Then, “There was one, Woolford … he moved like an agent.”

Merlin nodded. “Yes, we got a match on him when we started the clean-up. DGSE, French military intelligence. We think he may have been investigating some of Ackerman’s business interests.”

That cleared up one mystery that had been nagging at Harry. “He played his part well. Ackerman had him killed. Are you going to tell them?”

Merlin shrugged. “Not directly, but yes.”

“And the survivor? Lee’s son.” Harry tried to keep it casual, tried to keep his voice even. He suspected he wasn’t fooling Merlin for a moment.

Merlin hesitated for less than a second. “It’s handled,” he said briskly. “He’s back with his family, like it never happened.”

They’d wiped Eggsy’s memory, wiped every trace of Fetheray from his mind. Harry knew he should be relieved about that - relieved that Eggsy would never remember the horror, the humiliation, Harry’s unwanted touch - but part of him felt almost bereft, like he’d lost something unique and irreplaceable.

“That’s a lot of time to erase.”

“As far as he’s concerned, it was a night out gone wrong. If he remembers anything at all he’ll just think it’s a bad dream.” Merlin clasped his hand briefly on Harry’s shoulder, a mirror of Eggsy’s gesture in their last moments together. It made Harry’s heart hurt. “He’s safe, Harry.”

Harry forced a smile that felt more like a grimace. “That’s good.”

“It’s for the best,” Merlin said. “Easier than dealing with the memories. The things we see, and the things we have to do. The choices we have to make.”

There was deliberation in the way he said it, a careful choice of words. In Merlin’s eyes Harry could see the truth: whether his glasses had been functioning or whether the other man had reviewed the security footage from Skirra House, Merlin knew what Harry had done with Eggsy. Had perhaps drawn the same conclusions Ackerman’s security had drawn.

It shouldn’t have mattered. A Kingsman agent was often required to do things that might be considered questionable and Harry had never cared to dwell on it much before. Now, though, he simply felt sick. Sick with the knowledge of what he had done with Eggsy, and sick with what Merlin - and presumably Arthur - thought he might have done.

Merlin clasped his hand on Harry’s shoulder again, a touch of reassurance and silent support. “It’s done,” he said. “Come on, let’s get this meeting over with.”

“You go,” Harry told him. “I’ll be there shortly.”

He expected Merlin to argue, or at least question why Harry was delaying, but to his surprise the other man left without a murmur. Left alone, Harry took a deep breath and then another.

It was done, it was over. Just another mission, to be written up and filed away and never thought of again. Next week would bring another, and the week after another one again. Save the world, hand over the glory, and retreat back into the shadows: that was the way Kingsman worked. Eggsy might have a few stray nightmares but the worst of his ordeal had been left behind on Fetheray. He'd live out his life in peace and obscurity and he'd never remember the name of Harry Hart.

Eggsy would have made a good agent, Harry thought. He was brave, intelligent, and he’d acted decisively when it counted. Saved Harry’s life, too. 

Harry looked at his own reflection in the mirror and sighed. There were missions from time to time that were unsettling, that got under the skin and left a lasting impression. Eggsy had managed to get under his skin, to knock Harry out of his well-ordered orbit. Harry did not much like the sensation. 

He took another deep breath. He'd become too involved, that was all. He needed another mission, something to distract him and help him put the memories firmly in the past. It would, he decided, be easy to forget Eggsy: their paths were unlikely to ever cross again. In twelve months’ time he would rarely think of Eggsy Unwin, if at all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully it's clear that this takes us up to immediately pre-canon. If you've made it this far, thanks for reading and sticking with this fic :)


End file.
